Brooklyn eagle 


FT 

HERDE 

4HV 

521 

Copy 1 


LIBRARY, 


No. 61 . 


Vol. XVII. No. 2. 


FEBRUARY, 1902. 


Price, Ten Cents 



the Nation 
Inmates 


By CHARLES M. SKINNER, 

Staff Correspondent of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle. 


ILLUSTRATED 


OFFICE OF PUBLICATION, EAGLE BUILDING, BROOKLYN 


Entered at the Brooklyn-New York Post Office as Second Class Matter. Yol. XVII, No. 2, of the Eagle Library. 
Serial No. 61, February, 1902. Yearly Subscription, $1.00. Almanac Number, 25 Cents. 













J5he 

PEOPLES TRUST COMPANY 

172 MONTAGUE STREET 


BROOKLYN-NEW YORK 

Capital, Surplus and Undivided Profits, - - $2,569,746.61 

FELIX CAMPBELL, President 

J. Q. DETTMER, 1st Vice-President HORACE J. MORSE, 2d Vice-President 

EDWARD JOHNSON, Secretary CHARLES A. BOODY, Assistant Secretary 

Transacts a General Trust Company Business 


Statement of The Peoples Trust Company 

AT THE CLOSE OF BUSINESS, DECEMBER 31st, 1901 

RESOURCES 

N. Y. City and Brooklyn Bonds, 

Other Stocks and Bonds, 

Bonds and Mortgages, 

Loans on Collateral, 

Bills Purchased, 

Cash on hand and in Banks, 

Real Estate, - 
Interest Accrued, 

$13,725,275.01 


$1,181,420.00 

1,575,065.00 

580,638.21 

8,226,214.85 

523,845.18 

1,271,298-71 

222,400.00 

144,393.06 


LIABILITIES 

Capital, ------ 

Surplus, ------ 

Undivided Profits (Net), ... 
Reserved for Taxes, - 
Monthly Dividend, payable Jan. 2d, 1902, 
Unpaid Dividends. .... 

Deposits, - - - - - 

Interest due Depositors, ... 
Rebate on Bills Purchased, 


$ 1 , 000 , 000.00 
1 , 000,000 00 
569,746.61 
8,666.67 
10 , 000.00 
46.00 
11.088,372.37 
44,930.00 
3,513.36 


$13,725,275.01 


TRUSTEES 


EUGENE G. BLACKFORD. Pres. Bedford Bank, Brooklyn 

ISIDORE M. BON,.Capitalist 

DAVID A. BOODY,. Banker 

FELIX CAMPBELL,.President 

AMORY S. CARHART,.Capitalist 

WM. M. COLE, President, Brooklyn Life Insurance Co. 
WM. B. DAVENPORT, - - Public Administrator 

J. G. DETTMER.Capitalist 

BERNARD GALLAGHER, .... Builder 

WILLIAM B. HILL,. Lawyer 

FREDERIC A. WARD, - 


SOLOMON W. JOHNSON, Treasurer, American News Co. 
JAMES JOURDAN, President, Brooklyn Union Gas Co. 

ROBERT J. KIMBALL,.Banker 

JAS. McMAHON, Pres. Emigrant Industrial Savings Bank 
HORACE J. MORSE, - - - - - Banker 

HERBERT L. PRATT, ... Charles Pratt & Co 
CLARENCE W. SEAMANS, Wyckoff, Seamans & Benedict 
HOWARD M. SMITH, Vice-Pres. Bedford Bank, Brooklyn 
ASIMIR TAG, - President, German-American Bank 
GEORGE P. TANGEMAN, .... Capitalist 
- Lawyer 


Interest Allowed on Deposits 




































PRISONS OF THE NATION 


AND 

THEIR INMATES. 


By CHARLES M. SKINNER, 


Staff Correspondent of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle. 


ILLUSTRATED. 


OFFICE OF PUBLICATION, 

EAGLE BUILDING, BROOKLYN. 

Entered at the Brooklyn-New York Post Office as Second Class Matter. Vol. XVII., No. 2, of the Eagle Library. 
Serial No. 01, February, 1902. Yearly Subscription, §1.00. Alumnae Number, 25 Cents. 












Contents r* 




The Offender.. 3 


Florida Convict Camps...,. 8 


Complete Isolation. 12 


The Probation System....... 17 


Obsolete Systems..... 22 


The Indeterminate Sentence... 28 


The Open System. .. 32 


The County Jail.. 37 


The House of Refuge.... 43 


The Released Convict. 

















Prisons of the Nation 


and Their Inmates. 


The Offender. 



> OW slenderly we 
balance between 
right^and wrong! 
The momentary 
temptation, the 
sudden stroke of 
passion, the flash 
of an evil 
thought, the sug¬ 
gestion of a self¬ 
ish motive, may 
turn us from the 
right forever. 
The human race 
has consented to separate itself from the 
brutes—most of us say “lift” when we 
speak of our departure from the ways of the 
creatures in the woods and fields, but if we 
have gained on them in many ways, how 
much lower we can fall than they, when we 
yield to the bad that is in us. And in the 
march of progress, how many willful lag¬ 
gards there are; how many, indeed, who 
seem to retrograde toward the brute condi¬ 
tion! Even when the onward march is 
taken up, what cruelties and severities are 
practiced on those who will not fall in line, 
or who hold a different faith or different 
ways of proving the faith that is in them! 
It is a mystery, this persistence of evil, 
that we are not likely to solve while we 
stay in the flesh. 


But while we may coddle theories and plead 
with offenders for reform, society has to take 
sharp measures, every now and then, to 
protect Itself from the rebellious element. 
Howsoever merciful it may be with respect 
to the men and women who prey upon it, 
the law of self preservation is imperious. 
Life must be safeguarded, at all cost, and 
property, under a system of individual own¬ 
ership, is a support of life which must be 
guarded, too. The criminal must be re¬ 
strained. But how? We have prisons and 
gallows, and electric chairs, and we have a 
vast and expensive machinery of courts, law¬ 
yers, police, constabulary, sheriffs, and what 
not, yet the criminal ceases not from his 
depredations. Has the balance in his case 
tipped so far to the wrong side of the scale 
that it is hopeless that it should ever tip 
the other way? Why not, then, start him 
In life on the moral side? 

Can it be done? It is the greatest of 


problems of society to-day. The conse¬ 
quence of the medium to be used for specie, 
of legislation to regulate the sale or aboli¬ 
tion of merchandise, of agreements on taxa¬ 
tion, of the change in national boundary 
lines, of party supremacy, is slight compared 
with that of permitting or denying the right 



of abolishing crime, or, the criminal. Is 
the offender incorrigible? If he would bur¬ 
den the world all his days, has he the right 
to live? Has the professional, irredeemable 
rogue the right to reproduce his kind? Has 
he the right to liberty? Has he the right 
to demand that the law abiding public shall 
be forever assessed to keep him in the idle¬ 


ness of a prison or an almshouse? Shall he 
alone, of all people, be absolved from the 
duty of useful labor and self support? Into 
these considerations policy enters, also 
sympathy. The criminal never had so few 
excuses as he has to-day. Education, which 
theoretically lifts us above the need of 
crime, is free for all; work is to be had by 
most of those who really want it and will 
look for it in the right places; charities 
were never so ample; there was never so 
much money in circulation as at present; 
many graces and comforts of life that, half 
a century ago, were only for the rich, are 
now at the behest of the laborer; the fed¬ 
eration of the people in cities is closer, and 
they do more for themselves than ever be¬ 
fore, gaining the benefits of schools, libra¬ 
ries, museums, art galleries, parks, hospi¬ 
tals, sanitation, even music, without price; 
the effort to carry health and light and air 
and understanding into the crowded dis¬ 
tricts was never so persistent. It is a good 
world and a good age; yet the malcontent is 
still abroad, stealing, outraging, beating, 
cheating, killing, drowning his alleged sor¬ 
rows in alcohol, and, while drowned, refus¬ 
ing to work or behave himself, and neglect¬ 
ing his wife and children. Society has plead¬ 
ed with him, it has punished him, it has 
made an outcast of him; but he will not 
stay cast out and he will not change. 

PREVENTION MUST tV^l’n^nZ 
BEGIN EARLY. cha " ge - Ye \ asa 

matter of fact, he 
often does. In order that he may do sc, so¬ 
ciety must begin with him while he is young.' 
It is better to begin with his grandfather, be¬ 
fore he is born, and by the time the otherwise 
offender arrives on the scene he will not be 
an offender at all, but an example of right¬ 
eous living worthy to be embalmed in a Sun¬ 
day school book. As we cannot catch the 
grandfather, however, that worthy having 
eluded human vigilance in the grave or the 
penitentiary, we must begin with the scamp 
as early as possible. And if we could begin 
with all scamps when they are 2 or 3 years 
old there would be so few scamps left that 
the world would be stupidly righteous and 
the daily papers could not publish more than 
four page editions, even on Sundays; for, in 
a wholly virtuous world, there would be no 
criminals, no prisoners, no police scandals, 
no aldermen, no heart breaking delaps of 








































4 


PRISONS OF THE NATION AND THEIR INMATES. 



less a miracle happens, the boy will take his 
moral color from his associates. He will join 
a street gang, he will depredate on apple 
slands and groceries, he will not work when 
he can borrow and beg, he will become adept 
in thieving, he will be arrested for fighting 
and disorder on the streets, he will become 
acquainted with police stations, jails, reform¬ 
atories and prisons, and, unless he experi¬ 
ences some great awakening, which becomes 
less and less probable and possible every 
year of his life, he will in time become an 
habitual criminal and will end his worse than 
worthless days behind the bars. 


BAD HABITS 


courts, no executions, and the lawyers -would 
*11 be dead of starvation, or something. 

Society is beginning to realize that fact. 
For the criminal is usually the product of en¬ 
vironment, and if society can improve his en¬ 
vironment it can reduce the number of its 
plagues. Take two boys of exactly the same 
character and put one into a tenement, where 
he will be a witness of drunkenness every 
day, where he will hear profanity and ob¬ 
scenity as common talk of men, women and 
children alike, where petty thieving is re¬ 
garded as clever and amusing, where men 
beat their wives, and wives take it out on 
their children, and children beat the weaker 
youngsters in the street, where the police are 
looked upon as persecutors, where there is 
dirt, darkness, filth, disorder, evil cooking; 
where girls lapse easily into lives of sin, 
where murders are committed for the price 
of a pail of beer, -where all that is to be prized 
In life of peace and beauty and refinement are 
ucknown, and wha't Will be the result? Un-1 


Meantime, what of 
the other, who has 

EASIEST FORMED. bee “ p,aced in a 

good home, among 
clean, honest people, who are just and tem¬ 
perate in their dealings, kindly and consider¬ 
ate toward every one, who have books and 
pictures and music; who, if they do not at¬ 
tend church are as moral as if they did, 
whose amusements are wholesome, who have 
an abhorrence of filth and meanness and vice; 
who, because- they have ehough to wear and 
to eat are never tempted to break the laws, 
who encourage schools and institutions for 
the education and bettering of the people- 
will he, also, escape the effects of his environ¬ 
ment? Oddly, he is more apt to than the 
other, for while the child of the slums may 
not see many high class people, the boy of 
good family is certain to meet with any num¬ 
ber of little sinners: meet them in school 
and on the streets and in his play. Yet, all 
things considered, he will become as his pa¬ 
rents or guardians have been, and wil) grow 
into useful and respectable citizenship. The 
bad boy in a good family is more likely to 
turn out well than the good boy in a bad 
family. It takes ten days to form a bad habit, 
and ten years to form a good one. 

In the present form of society the whole¬ 
sale reformation of the part of the human 
race that needs it is the only cure for 
crime, and it is undertaking too big a con¬ 
tract for our means to lift the masses that 
furnish the larger number of criminals. Let 
not the mistake be made, however, of sup¬ 
posing that honesty and virtue are inconsist¬ 
ent with lowly life in the cities. While four- 
fifths of the crime comes from the tenements, 
yet there are hundreds of thousands of dwel¬ 


lers among them who remain unspoiled. The 
tenement as an institution is bad; there is 
no doubt on that point; but the individual 
family that lives in it can preserve its moral 
autonomy and bring up its children in honor. 
The mass of men are good, and of -women, 
better. The tenement has its virtues of 
domestic fidelity, industry, courage, yes, and 
of modesty and intelligence. Its views on 
wrong doing are pronounced and its meas¬ 
ures against it prompt and severe. 

The concrete moral force that the young 
offender dreads is the policeman. To him the 
man in blue and buttons is a genius of malig¬ 
nity. If he is some kinds of a boy he seems 
hardly to understand that the policeman can 
be anything other than an oppressor, or that 
law is anything more or less than a device 
of the prosperous to harry the people who 
do not enjoy prosperity. And when he lives 
in a crowded tenement the boy’s besetments 
are such as to entitle him to sympathy. 
He has no play room except the street, and 
the policeman chases him if he sees him 
playing there. He has no yard, except the 
roof, and when he goes up there and inno¬ 
cently casts pebbles on the beads of pedes¬ 
trians, the policeman likewise pursues him. 
Grown folks can lounge before the saloons, 
but when - he pauses there, the policeman 
smites his legs and tells him to move on. 
He knows men in his ward who grow rich 
without work, through being elected as aider- 
men, yet if he tries to annex so much as an 
apple from the stand on the street corner, 
the policeman, who wants those apples him¬ 
self. chases him away with a ferocious bran¬ 
dishing of clubs and .terrifying scowls and 
outcries. So he hates the policeinan and be¬ 
lieves that he stands for partiality and in¬ 
justice. 

REGARDING THE soon, he learns 

POWERS THAT RULE . t0 ka ™ t the 

power that is 
vested in the man with the buttons, even as 
the man in buttons learns to know the power 
that the boy and his band may wield; for 
more than one officer has come to his death 
from the revengeful assaults of a "growler 
gang.” And the criminal’s awakening to the 
attitude of society toward his offenses gen¬ 
erally comes in a police station. It seems as 
if everybody should know what a police sta¬ 
tion is, but it appears from various evidence 
that such is not the case. A station, then, 
is the office of a precinct, and cities are ar¬ 
bitrarily dividedinto precincts, each in charge 
of a captain and each containing its quota of 
officers, which, in times of peace are enough 
for local needs, but which in times of riot 
or calamity may be reinforced oy drafts from 
other precincts. Commonly the station is a 
brick building, of no pretension to beauty, 
and for sanitary reasons is as bare within as 
without. Officers who are on duty sleep here, 
and the captain has not only his private 
office but his bedroom. In the basement or 
in an annex are* the cells where prisoners 
are detained until the sitting of the magis¬ 
trate’s court, somewhere near, in the morn¬ 
ing. They are usually taken to this court 
in the vehicle known—according to its color— 
as the black maria or the white maria, and 
the same wagon takes them to jail or the 
penitentiary after they have received sen¬ 
tence. Not only are ‘criminals gathered dur¬ 
ing the night, but insane persons, men too 
merry for self identification, people that have 
fallen ill and are suspected of worse, and 
lost children, bawling vainly for mothers and 
fathers who have never taught them to repeat 
the number and the street wherein they live, 
nor even to know their family names. 



























































ritlSOXS OF TTTE NATION AND TITCIR INMATES. 


5 


ACHIEVING THE 
HONOR OF ARREST. 


It is midnight 
and the sergeant 
is half dozing 
at his desk, his 
cap pulled over his eyes, his hig book open 
on the table before him, a couple of bright gas 
jets flaring on either side of it, and all but 
two or three of his men asleep. A witch¬ 
like creature is shrieking evil names at in¬ 
tervals from the cell to which she was con¬ 
signed a while ago. Two or three “drunks” 
are slumbering heavily in other cells and a 
burglar, caught in the act, is making the best 
of it and has lain him down to rest till morn¬ 
ing. The door opens and a big policeman en¬ 
ters, dragging and pushing a youngster of 13 or 
14 in a shabby suit, tousled hair, unwiped nose, 
broken shoes and a horribly dirty shirt. He 
Pas been trying to cry and has been spitting 
on his knuckles before rubbing them into his 
eyes, in order to make it seem as if he had 
been shedding tears. He is a little fright¬ 
ened, but he is not able to do much weeping. 
It would hardly be the thing to confess to 
such weakness after he regains his liberty. 
For after he returns to his family he will 
feel a pride in having been wicked enough to 
get himself arrested. Quite possibly he 
will brag of it and will be pointed out by 
smaller children as an illustrious example. 
He has been looting a fruit shop and has 
been caught at it. 


The doorman appears after the boy’s name, 
age and address have been entered on the 
blotter and conducts him to one of the cells, 
a whitewashed room of stone containing a 
bed and a bucket, the bed consisting of three 
planks. There is an odor of carbolic acid 
roundabout and surface indications on the 
occupants of the place prove it is needed. 
Bright lights glare in at .the gratings, so 
that when a prisoner tries to cut his way out 
he is seen doing it, and his files and imple¬ 
ments are taken away, supposing that he 
has been smart enough to conceal them from 
the men who searched him. It is a tedious 
place, is a police station, and all the adven¬ 
ture there is in being arrested and confined 
seems not worth the while when our young 
offender has been there a couple of hours. 
He has a healthy appetite for sleep and he 
presently stretches himself on the hard, 
dirty boards, with his cap for a pillow, and 
forgets his surroundings. in the morning 
the doorman rouses him and he has a bite 
oi rrravi r.nci a. cup or conee. Alter mat ne 
is to put into the black maria, with a company 
an rageed, as unwashed, as dejected, as ill 
red as *;mself, and presently debarks before 
the court, and is conducted by an officer to 
the “cage” upstairs, where he awaits hear¬ 
ing and sentence, and he goes hence to lib¬ 
erty or punishment. 

If the judge is some kinds of a magistrate 
the boy's career in crime begins from that 
hour, for too many of the men who have 
got themselves put into the lower courts arc 
unable to discriminate between offenses and 
offenders, and visit on the criminal by acci¬ 
dent the same pimishment as would be im¬ 
posed on the criminal by intention. The 
boy is usually a criminal by mistake—mis¬ 
take of birth and association; mistake of un¬ 
derstanding and ideals. There should never 
be a commitment of a child to a jail or 
penitentiary. His place is in a reformatory, 
and if he proves to be an irredeemable ras¬ 
cal, like the boy murderer wfith a white eye, 
who is somewhat too celebrated in the crim¬ 
inal annals of Massachusetts, he should be 
sent into lifelong retirement in an asylum, 
for it is pot safe to set him at liberty. He 



PRISONS IS EVIL 


should never have been born, and it is a 
question which the scientists have discussed 
timidly if he should not be killed, just as 
we kill mad dogs and rampageous microbes. 

___If he is a normal 

MORAL EFFECT OF boy, with only the 

usual allowance of 
sin—which is a 
plenty in any case—he is not a candidate for 
association with old and experienced scamps, 
even if they were bashful as to instructing 
him in what he did not already know 7 about 
mischief. The moral effect of such impris¬ 
onment is evil, for he is led to consider him¬ 
self an equal and associate of men who 
were by nature and achievement worse than 
he. If he is sensitive, this is the wrnrst part 
of his punishment, but as sensitiveness is 
more likely to be one of his most conspicuous 
lacks, he is too apt to take pride in the as¬ 
sociation, for It 'puts him on equality 
with experts in crime and, therefore, it 
flatters his shallow egotism. Criminals are 
self conceited, as a class, and it is that very 
self importance that makes it hard to teach 
them, since a person who thinks himself one 
of the most important pdbple in the world 
will not put forth much effort to make him¬ 
self different. 


If the judge is wise, properly sympathetic, 
anu has the understanding of human nature 
that fits him to be a judge, he will not send 
the boy to a prison but return him to his 
parents, to be spanked. If the parents re¬ 
fuse him ho should go to a reformatory, and 
the milder the rule in that reformatory the 
better. The institution will then begin the 
work that should have been done before the 
boy got’into trouble and if he is fairly in¬ 
telligent and tractable it will make a man 
of him. instead of, a burden and a nuisance. 
Should the boy be sent to a prison he will 
bp photographed, not, as w'ould be the case 
if we had a scientific system of dealing with 
criminals, or, indeed, aDy system at all, for 
the purpose of arriving at a better under¬ 
standing of the physiognomy, physiology and 
psychology of the criminal, therefore coming 
to a better result in his treatment, but 
merely that he may be the sooner caught in 
case he runs aiway, or in case he .is wanted 
for another offehse after his release. The 
photograph goes into the rogues’ gallery, 


which is for the view of any concerned, and 
which has afforded a means of identifying 
hundreds of men who might otherwise have 
escaped. For the fact of being represented 
in the collection is in itself a damning cir¬ 
cumstance and inay fasten upon even an in¬ 
nocent man a belief on the part of the detec¬ 
tives in hi'S guilt. 

IDENTIFICATION BY seem, the meas- 
MEASURE SUREST. ure “ ents - ori s; 

mally devised, 
not for criminal'identification, but to keep 
tab on the soldiers in the French army and 
prevent the enlistment in it of German spies, 
is of more use than the photograph. A man's 
appearance changes with years, especially af¬ 
ter years of a well spent life, and he can, 
moreover, disguise himself by growing long 
hair and whiskers, but his measurements will 
vary little, making due allowance,,of course, 
for natural growth in the case of the young. 
In all the prisons there is a large cabinet, ra- 



















































G 


PUI 


THE NATION AND THEIR INMATES. 


sembling a card catalogue, in which these 
measurements are arranged in such divis- ( 
Ions that, given the mere fact of a large head 
or a small head, to begin with, the suspect 
can be identified and his previous record 
obtained in five minutes, and more generally 
in two, if he is on the bad books at all. 

After the photograph has be%n taken—and 
It is useless in these days of swift picture 
making for the sitter to make faces and 
thereby try to disguise himself, as he some¬ 
times persists in doing, for he never knows 
exactly when the button has been pressed— 
the young offender Is sent to the bath tub 
and there he is washed, possibly for the first 
time in years. Then he is put into a prison 
suit, the rules of the place are read to him, 
and he is assigned to a cell which it may not 
be his good fortune to leave in years. 

The young offender has more chances for 


drunkenness, truancy, crap playing, assault, 
| throwing stones and other malicious mis¬ 
chief. There were 3 arrests for attempted 
suicide, 3 for arson and 2 for murder. In 
the same time there tvere 780 cases against 
adults for the abuse and neglect of children. 
In the whole city of New York, including all 
boroughs, there were 45,160 arrests, of which 
number 1,433 were of children. Owing to the 
efforts of this society the age of consent was 
advanced from 10 years, in 1880, to 18, in 
1892; yet there has been a diminution in the 
number of cases of assault. 

The Brooklyn 

HOW CHILDREN society has a 
REFORM PARENTS. appointed 

building on a 
quiet street containing bedrooms, bathrooms, 
diningrooms and playrooms, and here the 
children are cared for, pending their dispo- 


to that of the gangs which have arisen in the 
cities as a result of depriving the children 
of play grounds and of being driven from 
place to place by the neighbors and the po¬ 
lice, and more especially to baneful home in¬ 
fluences and the examples set by elders. Crap 
playing and minor offenses, he thinks, are 
due to a lack of realizing sense in their 
wrongness. Says he: “I would make a iaw 
to punish parents for the wrong doing of a 
child. A while ago a! boy was arrested here 
for firing at a man who had tried to prevent 
his stealing. The boy was the son of w'ell 
to do people, and he had no excuse for steal¬ 
ing. They knew that he had carried a re¬ 
volver for a year. He was the best dressed 
boy that had been arrested here for some 
time. Now, the fault in a case like that is 
distinctly the fault of the parents.” 



escape from these evils than ever before. His 
youth has become a partial protection to 
him. The well known Gerry Society of New 
York has now a counterpart in the leading 
cities of the country, and tho cities of 
ether countries are studying their methods. 
The Brooklyn Society for the Prevention of 
Cruelty to Children may be taken as an ex¬ 
ample of these beneficent institutions. This 
has a wider range and function than its name 
implies, for it is a force in reformation as 
well as in rescue. Last year it dealt with 
1,685 cases, and of these a hundred were of 
children accused of burglary. All of the 
cases were of children of 16 years and less. 
5"h& boys and glrl3had been accused of theft,, 


sltlon In tomes and asylums, or their res¬ 
toration to their parents, or to their commit¬ 
ment, in rare instances, to reformatories. 
Part of the good work of the society is to 
reform the parents through the children. A 
boy who returns to a mean home with his 
face washed and his clothing whole and his 
shoes blacked may be a surprise to his 
parents, but he is not an unwelcome sur¬ 
prise, and the groggy father and the slat¬ 
ternly mother are not unlikely to try to 
live up to him, for a while. The superinten¬ 
dent of the society, Mr. Wilkin, ascribes 
some of the mischievous tendencies of the. 
youngsters to evil companionship, especially 


FAVORITE CRIMES 
IN VARIOUS CITIES. 


It would be a 
valuable and in¬ 
structive work to 
secure from the 
various American cities not merely official 
but scientific accounts of their misdoing. Of¬ 
ficial reports do not present the true state 
of the case, because the moral standards of 
communities and of police and courts vary, 
and there are differences in the laws and 
the method of their administration. In 
Chicago, for instance, the form of robbery 
known as the hold-up is one of the recognized 
institutions of the place. The penalty for 
it is slight, and there is no possible doubt 
that the police, now thoroughly corrupted by 


















































































prisons or mr nation’ and their inmates. 


7 



politics, wink at it, if they do not divide 
profitb with the highwaymen. In London 
there was once a prevalence of garroting, 
and it was not safe for any citizen to go 
abroad at night; but after the lash had been 
authorized as a punishment this crime passed 
into local history and has never been prac¬ 
ticed there since. It street robbery were 
not a source of revenue for somebody beside 
the robbers it could be and would be broken 
up in Chicago in forty-eight hours. In New 
York, under Tammany, money in some cases 
and political pull in others secure immu¬ 
nity for many forms of vice and make it 
safe for hundreds of men and women to break 
the law. In those cities where gambling is 
licensed there are no arrests for that cause. 
In many Prohibition districts an indirect li¬ 
cense is paid by saloon keepers in the -form 
of fines, it being the local custom to arrest 
them once a week or even once a day. These 
matters being considered, it is obvious that 
no accurate and comparative table of social 
conditions can be based upon police returns 
alone. 

But, taking the police reports, it is found 
that, averaging our American cities, less 
than six persons in a hundred are arrested 
in the course of a year, and this is not as 
bad as it sounds, for many “roundeTs” are 
arrested- repeatedly for drunkenness and 
vagrancy. Contrary to the general belief, the 
smaller cities lead the greater in apparent 
wickedness, but this showing is a partial re¬ 
sult of better.policing. In Chicago, for exam¬ 
ple, the town is overrun by bummers and 
tramps because the arrests for vagrancy are 
practically ' nothing, while in some of the 
Western cities the police keep the “pan¬ 
handler” moving and housekeepers are not 
subjected to the daily annoyance of answering 
demands for free meals at the front door. 

In actual 

CRIME MOST crimes- 

prevalent in south. ^;% 0 a b s - 

beries and forgeries—the Southern cities are 
in the lead. Florida is a bad state; Savannah 
is the most wicked city in America in respect 
of serious offenses, though Atlanta shows a 
higher proportion of arrests, mainly for 
drunkenness and disorder, however; Norfolk, 
Va., ha 3 to arrest every sixth or seventh 
member of its population during the year and 
Lexington, Ky., has 112 offenders to the thou¬ 


A CANDIDATE EOR THE ROGUES’ GALLERY. 


Glasgow, though not so good as Montreal or 
London. If it were not for its fondness for 
drink Woonsocket, R. I., would be one of the 
best towns in the United States, though it ?s 
a mill town and has a large foreign popula- 
tibu. As it is, the best cities in this country 
are Alleghany, Pa.; Tacoma, Wash., and 
Dubuque, la. These figures are according to 


from conditions that cannot be so readily 
changed as they may be in Europe, where 
the law-making power.is vested, not in the 
masses, but in the classes. But in this very 
fact there is a warrant of ampler justice and 
higher mercy toward the offender. Reform, 
not punishment, must be the word for th« 
future. 


sand in its 26,000 population. New York Is 
apparently more moral than Chicago, and 
three times as'many people are taken into 
custody in the latter city on charges of dis¬ 
orderly conduct, as in New York, but the cost 
of going through the form of protecting New 
York is half as great again as in Chicago. 

It is a comfort to be told that New York i 3 
better behaved than Liverpool, Dublin or 


a table prepared by Magistrate Deuel of New 
York. 

In this country we run to crimes of violence 
and in the old world there is a preponderance 
of crimes against property. We have the 
more murderers and assailants, and the more 
rowdies and street fighters, while Europe has 
the more petty thieving and swindling and 
picking of pockets. Our problem is, there¬ 
fore, the more difficult and it results in part 
















Florida Convict Camps. 




SIDE from his immora'. 
aspect, the community 
has to consider the crim¬ 
inal from an economic 
standpoint. He is not 
merely troublesome, but 
expensive. Generally 

he is a drag on the peo¬ 
ple. Not only does he 
take continually and 
give nothing back, when 
free, but in captivity he requires to be sup¬ 
ported. And servitude is not the normal, but 

the necessary condition of him. As a violator 
of the social compact, he ceases to be of the 
state. As one in but not of the state he be¬ 
comes its ward. As its ward he must be fed 
and clothed, at least, if not educated and 
made immune against certain forms of 

temptation. 

In order that he may be supported and 
taught it is customary to assess the moral 
members of society, and his bill against the 
state is a pretty penny in the lump sum, 
which includes not only his stealings, his 
fires and the injuries he inflicts, but his big 
stone, house with iron doors and its many 
servitors. The cost to the country is not less 
than $200,000,000 a year, and in the City of 
New York the annual assessment is $6 on 
every citizen. 

Where the labor unions have not prevented 
it, society has made the criminal pay his 
own bills. In most countries and in most of 
the states, he works at some manner of trade 
or occupation, and even when there is no 
money return from his industry, it is best 
for his mind, body and morals that he shall 
not idle away his time. Hence, he works, 
though it be only at a treadmill, as in Eng¬ 
land, or in breaking stone, as in many other 
places. For breaking stone is Better than 
breaking hearts, and picking oakum is better 
than picking locks. 

In the South, where the people are begin¬ 
ning to show a keenness for money that is not 
surpassed in the North, but where, as yet, 
capital is not gathered into such immense 
and usable sums as in the Central and East¬ 
ern states, a new policy has been adopted, 
with regard to the offender. He is generally 
a negro, hence he is sent back to slavery. 
He is sold to a farmer, a distiller, a miner, 
a manufacturer, for a term of years, and his 
employer pays considerably less to the state 
than he would otherwise lay out in wages. 
The state is absolutely rid of the rebels 
against its order and safety, and not a cent 


is levied against the community for their 
support. 

So popular has this form become of dis¬ 
posing of the criminal, that it has spread 
from Florida and Georgia through Mississip¬ 
pi, Louisiana, Alabama and Texas, and other 
states are likely to follow their example. In¬ 
stead of inviting the contractor to go to the 
prison and take charge of inmates, the prison¬ 
ers go to the contractor and he becomes re¬ 
sponsible for their keeping. This total abro¬ 
gation of interest on the part of the state 
resulted at first in tyranny and ill-treatment, 
nor are ideal conditions yet attained, but to 
the taxpayer the surplus at the end of the 
year, in place of a deficit, is a powerful argu¬ 
ment, and any departure from the uew order 
would now meet with opposition. 

I CAOIMC Those who have 

LkAollMG studied the matter 

^Y^TFM NflT agree that the leasin s 

o I o I LIVI IMU I of convlets is the best 

SATISFACTORY. possible thing for the 

state, but they are not 
unanimous, and are less positive when they 
are asked if it is beet for the criminal. Some 
of the state officials themselves believe that, 
in the end, the system is bad, because it does 
not check crime so firmly as does the older 
form of imprisonment, and one inspector in 
Alabama declares that, as a result of his 
investigations, he believes in a complete re¬ 
versal. He would go back to the old sys¬ 
tem of solitary confinement in cells. There, 
he maintains, the culprit would be soonest 
brought to a realizing sense of his misdoing 
and his repentance would produce a more 
lasting reform. At present, offenders of all 
grades and ages are thrown together and the 
younger ones learn more evil than they knew 
at the time of their arrest, growing daily 
more depraved and vicious so long as they 
remain in bad company. It may be possible, 
however, to employ most of the convicts at 
tasks which will not require their close asso¬ 
ciation, either at work or in quarters, and, 
if that desideratum can be reached, the last 
argument against the leasing of prisoners 
will be met and the system will be continued 
indefinitely, such minor matters as the cor¬ 
ruption of inspectors, of which Alabama has 
complained, being capable of rebuke through 
legislation. 

In Florida, the farming out of thieves and 
murderers gave rise to many scandals. The 
prison camps were scenes of disorder. They 
were compared, and justly, to those of I 
Siberia, which they closely resemble—the ^ 


matter of climate being eliminated—and the 
oppressions, injuries and outrages were not 
unlike those recorded of the prisons of Eu¬ 
rope in the last century. Women convicts, 
fortunately few in number, were entirely at 
the mercy of the men who had bought them 
and of the overseers and bosses. Prisoners 
were kept in filthy barracks, half starved, 
loaded with chains, overworked and beaten. 
The state was compelled to interfere and, 
under the new order, there is little com¬ 
plaint. even among the convicts themselves. 

In Alabama there has been less of personal 
abuse, but it is alleged that certain inspec¬ 
tors of the camps have availed themselves of 
their positions to improve their fortunes, by 
accepting stores or money as a condition of 
overlooking defects and wrongs. In that 
state, as in Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas, 
a majority of the convicts are leased to pri¬ 
vate employers, but these states own or rent 
certain farms and plantations, which are 
worked by short term prisoners, at a profit. 
Georgia compels its minor offenders to clean 
and repair the roads and streets, and it is a 
strange sight for Northern eyes—'that of a 
band of four or five men, black and white, 
shackled, in convict stripes, hoeing and 
sweeping before the residences of the sort of 
people who, in some parts of the world, 
would be shocked by such an exhibition, 
while a burly person leans against anybody’s 
fence a few yards away, with a loaded gun 
in his hand, and watches the prisoners, and 
chews tobacco. 

The restraints which 

CONVICT have been laid upon 

convict labor in many 
parts of the country, 

UNPROFITABLE. on the allegation that 

it is a rival of free 
labor, have resulted in putting many of the 
prisoners at work on roads, parks, res¬ 
ervoirs, embankments and the like, and 
usually they are well employed at road 
building, for in the matter of public 
highways we are wofully behind Eu¬ 
rope. So it is curious that in Alabama they 
have been taken off the roads, for econ- . 
omy’s sake, it having been found that the 
cost was higher than when such roads were 
built by free labor. A law of that state like¬ 
wise forbids the employment of leased con¬ 
victs in railroad work, but there were sani¬ 
tary reasons for this, as it was found that 
the health of the prisoners suffered in the 
temporary and ill furnished camps, that 


ROAD BUILDING 










PRISONS OF THE NATION AND THEIR INMATES. 


changed place every day, as the embankment 
was extended, and that they were too often 
pitched in marshy and malanal ground. 

Most of the Alabama convicts are em¬ 
ployed in turpentine distilleries and coal 
mines. The state pays the cost of conviction, 
but beyond that, the employer assumes all 
the expense. If a criminal escapes his em¬ 
ployer must pay into the public treasury 
$200, if the runaway is a long term prisoner, 
or “state man,” and $100, if he is a “county 
man,” or short term convict. The runaways 
number barely 2 per cent., and in trying to 
get away, they stand a good chance of being 
shot. Bloodhounds are kept at every camp. 
The Alabama state inspectors are only three 
in number, and one of them must be a physi¬ 
cian. They make the rounds of the convict 
stations twice a month. The present system 
has been in vogue for seventeen years, and 
brings into the state an annual income of 
$40,000. The law demands that the prisoners 
shall be properly clad and lodged and shall 
be fed on the United States Army ration. 
They are to have sleeping rooms and dining¬ 
rooms in separate buildings, the negroes and' 
white convicts are not to be housed together, 


his skull with a hatchet. After this second 
assassination he walked away and was never 
captured. 


FLORIDA HAS 
THIRTEEN 
CONVICT CAMPS. 


There are now 
thirteen camps in 
Florida, each one of 
which is technically 
a state prison, and 
they are under the 


watch of a supervisor who must visit them at 


least once in sixty days, examine the build¬ 
ings, food, clothes and bedding, question 
keepers and convicts as to work, punishment, 
and health, enforce compliance with the laws 
and report to the governor every month. 
Where a contractor fails in his promises the 
governor has power to end his business re¬ 
lations with the state, and he has also the 
authority to pardon any convict. The leasing 
system has been in vogue for twenty-three 
years. At first the state paid $8,000 to a con¬ 
tractor to take its prisoners off its hands. 
He made so good a thing of it that in the 
next year men were found who were quite 
willing to take the convicts for nothing. Re¬ 
cently the, sale of their services has realized 
$21,000 a year, and there is reason to believe 


, 9 

a week; he must see that the buildings are 
swept every day and scalded and. scoured on 
Saturday; every man must wash his hands 
and face before eating; for sick convicts beds 
must be provided with springs and mosquito 
nets; in case of death, when no physician 
has been in attendance, the usual inquest is 
held; contractors are empowered to punish 
lor disobedience, but are warned against 
cruelty; no guard may curse, strike or abuse 
a prisoner; no intoxicated person may enter 
a camp; any employe discovered to have been 
drinking is to be discharged at once; card 
playing, gambling and liquor are forbidden t<s. 
the prisoners; conversation between prison¬ 
ers and strangers is forbidden; no convict, 
whether a trusty or not, is to leave the 
stockade or works, except under guard, and 
all must be in quarters at 8 at night; there 
shall be no work on Sunday; men employed in 
mines must not be so shackled or hobbled 
that they cannot move quickly when a bauk 
is about to fall. 

A recent report showed 780 prisoners in 
the camps and this number is an average. 
During the past year 18 died. 131 were dis¬ 
charged, 6 pardoned, 25.escaped, 11 were re- 



A PRISON CAAAP.V 

WADC’S, Ft-A. 


and every camp must have a hospital. When 
an inspector is present at the whipping, a tur¬ 
bulent convict may be punished with twenty- 
one lashes on the bare back, but in the 
absence of a state officer, the camp warden's 
powers are limited, for he is forbidden to 
give more than fifteen blows, and with the 
'convict clothed, at that. The guards must 
be of good character, ostensibly, but no other 
qualification is exacted. They receive from 
$20 to $30 a month and their “keep,” and are 
generally of the poor white class, dull and il¬ 
literate. 

In Florida, where the prison camps were 
formerly the worst, many changes have been 
made for the better, owing to the indignation 
excited by laxity and cruelty in former years. 
It is alleged that prisoners were not only 
beaten nearly to death, but killed outright, 
the reports representing that they had been 
shot in trying to escape. The camp guards 
were often of as low a grade as the prison¬ 
ers, and brutal fights used to occur among 
them. In one instance a guard who had com¬ 
mitted a murder, suspecting one of his com¬ 
rades of an intent to betray him to the au¬ 
thorities and obtain a reward, followed the 
Unfortunate man to a shadowy spot and clove 


that within the twelvemonth this figure will 
be advanced to $100,000. One man may bid 
for all the convicts in the state and then sub¬ 
lease them in gangs of any desired size, but 
direct bids will probably be exacted in future. 
All leases are for four years, and the only 
cost of its criminals to the state are the 
salaries of supervisors and a sum of $300 a 
year for chaplain service. 

The development of the phosphate mines, 
which created a demand for men, was in part 
responsible for the inauguration and success 
of the leasing system, and the profits of these 
mines and of the turpentine stills are such 
as to justify not merely all cost of main¬ 
taining the convicts, while at work, but dur¬ 
ing their confinement in jail, between arrest 
and sentence. The prisoners fare as well, 
in the average, under this arrangement, as 
when cared for by the public. No employer 
of convicts can expect good work from men 
who are underfed, ill cloi'ied, improperly 
housed and maltreated. It is required of the 
contractor that he shall provide each con¬ 
vict with two suits of clothing—the usual 
prison garb, with dirty looking black and 
white stripes; he shall cause each man to 
change his clothes and bathe at least one's 


captured and 609 were whipped. A common 
proportion of blacks and whites will shat? 
about 650 negroes to 100 whites and 20 colored 
women to 2 white ones. 

The food appears to be sufficient, fair in 
quality and is cooked by the convicts them¬ 
selves. At Hillman’s turpentine ■ camp. 
Floral City, where forty-nine men are em¬ 
ployed, the ration for a recent day consisted 
of 49 pounds of bacon, 25 of flour, 20 of dried 
peas, 37 of meal, 9 of rice, and 1% gallons of 
syrup. Vegetables diversify the diet and on 
Christmas the heart of the colored gentleman 
behind the bars enlarges with joy, for he has 
turkey and chicken. At Hillman's Camp, 
which is considered as a model, good feeding 
appears to produce good order, for a month's 
report announces that only one man was 
punished. “He was whipped 8 licks.” 

Let us ”isit a 

SAMPLE CAMP specimen camp— 

■ y y ij p * one of those in 

” ' I nt the north ern 

PHOSPHATE MINES. » art o£ the 

state, in the 
district of which Lake City is the presuuip : 
five capital. It is a rough, backward, 
lonely country, with ragged woods of pine 





























10 


PRISONS OF THE NATION AND THEIR INMATES. 



Sd^rdfA 


\A/AcA(/7 <?/- a fooistc/- £ 


LVdc/rlf F’/q\ 


Jl^&j/vv/sAs JJ- work //7 />/u?jpAd/~d m/a/ss 


and green Saws of palmetto in every prospect. 
The villages are scattered and poor. Many 
appear to hgve no-school, mo church, no so¬ 
cial, intellectual or industrial stimuli. The 
‘crackers” vegetate, content with the old 
ways, lazy, void of ambition, illiterate and to 
their shame be it said, the negroes show* far 
more diligence than they in the matter of 
acquiring education. They “allow schools 
are good things, and they are going to send 
the chillun to one of ’em some time,” but 
they don’t. When Florida has more towns 
and railroads, and the rest of the world rubs 
harder against its corners, it may improve. 
As the state has fewer people than Balti¬ 
more. they do not see enough of one another. 

It is a windy, dusty drive through the nine 
barrens to the phosphate mines. Mot a sign 
post to be seen and roads waggle off to right 
and left, seemingly going to now'here. A 
stranger would be hopelessly lost in an hour. 
Indeed, it is hard to imagine that one could 
make his way through these woods without 
a compass. They offer no difficulties to the 
feet. There are no tangles of vegetation. 
It is endless sand and pine—sand and 
pine. Hundreds of miles of this country 
have probably never felt the press ' of 
human foot and the infrequent houses that 
are seen are but little more than shanties. 
After a time ungainly hoist3 and crushers 
begin to show themselves in clearings, and 
presently, a stockade, inclosing, say, half an 
acre, comes into view. The fence is of 
heavy wooden palings, about fifteen feet high 
and contains a gate wide enough to admit a 
wagop. It is unfastened, and on entering 
a long, dismal wooden structure, unpainted, 
is seen at the left, and a larger one over-tops 
it at the right. This larger one is white¬ 
washed and is for black folk and the black 
and rusty building Is ter white ones. Negroes 
are the aristocrats in this settlement. The 
buildings are locked and shuttered, yet the 
interiors are visible because of the light 
which enters at chinks in the wood work, 
cracks of an inch in width being common. 
In the white men’s barracks there are no 
prisoners, for they are at work; but in the lit¬ 
tle room at the end, where the trusties sleep, 
one young fellow is abed. He sits up as I 
e*» er and eyes me sharply. 

’Are you the doctor?” he asks, and when 
I say "No,” he grumbles, “Well. I seen you 
somewhere,” and goes to sleep again. 

At the door a dispirited, droop-shouldered 
man in a convict dress that looks as if it had 
been worn for twenty years, and a mustache 
that has been eaten off in spots, is coughing— 


; the hollow, raucous, hopeless cough of the 
j consumptive. He is another trusty. Proba- 
I bly he could not live tw*o days from this base 
of supplies. There is one middle aged ne¬ 
gro in the black men’s barracks, who is evi- 
j dently on the sick list also. He sits at one 
| of the dining tables, motionless as a graven 
! image, with his eyes fixed on an inch of can- 
! die that is guttering in a tin holder. In the 
| gleam of the candle and the narrow bars of 
daylight, it is seen that a few* personal pos- 
1 sessions are allowed to the convicts, a pin 
! cushion, a pictured calendar, a banjo, a kick- 
- shaw or so. from the poor hovels that they 
called their homes. The interiors are 
neither very dirty nor very clean. They are 
‘ in good order, and there is none of the usual 


prison odor. Many New York tenement* 
are more noisome. The barracks, indeed, 
suggest the log houses which are winter 
homes of Maine lumbermen, but those who 
have seen the Siberian prisons, say that they 
are almost a counterpart of them in size, ap¬ 
pearance and interior arrangement. 

In a detached shed, tw*enty 
or thirty feet aw*ay, is the 
kitchen, a dark and dingy 
place, with an earth floor, 
a huge caldron set in brick, 
and a brick oven. A bold 
looking colored woman is seated on a table 
swinging her feet, humming carelessly and 
nibbling at an apple. A colored man is choD- 


CONVICT 

KITCHENS 

UNINVITING. 
















































































PRISONS OF THE NATION AND THEIR INMATES. 


11 


ping wood In the yard. At a bench Is a 
white fellow of 30, with keen black eyes 
and a stubble'of beard, who is grinding cof¬ 
fee. The presiding genius, also in‘convict 
dress, is a peaceable lpoking man of about 
the same age, with mild blue eyes, soft voice 
and apologetic manner—something pathetic 
about him—who lifts the lid of the caldron 
and stirs some great slabs of fat pork tum¬ 
bling about in yellow, frothing water. One 
look, one sniff at this would be the coup de 
grace in a reluctant case of seasickness. 
There are hoe cakes, just out of the ashes 
in the brick oven, that are pleasanter to 
contemplate, for although coarse, they ap¬ 
pear wholesome. This is the supper. No 
guards are in sight, and any one of the 
seven occupants of the camp could walk away 
and be lost if he could find water to cross. 
Otherwise the • dogs would be upon him and 
he would be dragged back to the stockade, 
whipped if he had not been shot on the run, 
and consigned to the mines with shackles 
about his legs. 


At each of the mines are gangs of a dozen 
or fifteen men—burly negroes, principally— 
-who are directed by white bosses, and about 
the edge of each excavation, which will aver¬ 
age an acre in extent, stand the guards. There 
are little towers, to which they can ascend and 
be under shelter in rain or noon shine. Many 
of these fellows have been used to guns from 
childhood; they are quick, straight shots, 
and it is pleasant to see them take a new 
grip on their weapons and look inquiringly 
toward one as he advances into the forbid¬ 
den ground. They are courteous, enough, 
however, on closer acquaintance—just dull, 
usual crackers, without whisky and without 
guile. There' are a few negro women em¬ 
ployed at some of the lighter labor about the 
breakers and washers, and they are without 
any guard soever. 


The Southern phosphate country is of un¬ 
known extent, but the Florida beds are scat¬ 
tered and are seldom more than a couple 
of acres in area or more than forty feet in 
thickness. The convicts are employed in 
breaking up the'soft, gray rock with picks 
and shovels, loading it on barrows, which are 
dumped into cable‘cars and' carried up" long 
inclines to the crushers. The work requires 
muscle, but no skill, and is such as would 
be allotted to the poorest paid laborers, if 
it were paid for at all. And most of these 
men get as much out of it as do the paid 
laborers—food, clothes and shelter. They are 
not a misused or depressed looking company. 
On the contrary, they are in good physical 
condition, they work steadily, but without 
haste or anxiety, and they look up out of the 
pits with the usual jolly grin of the negro 
when they find strange eyes upon them. It 
is hard to believe them to be as bad as their 
accusers have made them out. At the set of 
sun they will march to quarters, where sup¬ 
per will be ready for them, and where, if the 
night is falling cold, a roaring wood fire will 
partially warm the room. Till 8 o’clock they 
can talk, read, dance, sing and play; then, 
at the stroke of a gong, they will undress, 
put on night gowns and lie down to sleep, 
two on each mattress. In some camps the 
mattresses are on the floor, in some on plat¬ 
forms and in others there are bunks. 


MAKE NO 


Several prisoners with 

PRISONERS whom I talked had no com¬ 
plaint to make. Indeed the 
only critic was the cook, 

COMPLAINT. whose kitchen, he said, was 

so loosely put together that 
on a windy day the sand blew in and both¬ 
ered him and got into the food, which was 
true, for even as he said it the sand was 
whirling in drifts across the barrens and 
threatening to play hob with such houses in 
the neighborhood as could boast of glass 
windows, and although there was no open 
window in this place I was able to take a 
photograph by the light that poured in 
through the crevices. If Florida were often 
struck with a frost the people in these barn 
like prisons would have pneumonia and other 
troubles, but the general health is good, and 
the antiseptic value of air is appreciated. It 
is customary to build the barracks in V 
shape, reserving one wing for the bunks and 
the other for a dining and lounging room. 
Each wing is 25■ or 30 feet wide, and of 
a length proportionate to the number of oc¬ 
cupants that an employer expects to keep 
about the place. Iron bars are seldom used 
for the small windows, which are general¬ 
ly shuttered against heat and flies, but there 
are stout bars of wood instead. The build¬ 
ings look as i£ they would be easy to burn, 
but no wholesale escape would be under¬ 
taken, even in such an event. The moral 
restraint of the Winchester is great, and 
there are dogs at every camp. 


Odd as it seems, the best guards are often 
the trusties, chosen from among the crim¬ 
inals themselves, and a carload of repro¬ 
bates recently passed through northern 
Florida in the charge of an experienced 
murderer who is serving a life sentence. The 
paid guards were instructed to obey his or¬ 
ders. This same pleasant person has a deal 
of liberty, aud is to be met in the woods, 
now and again, with a gun and a dog, no 
longer killing men, but birds, and sure to 
be back at the stockade before bed time, 
if he says he will be: a puffeck gentleman, 


sah. 


If to this man convict life is a descent 
it is otherwise for a majority of the pris¬ 
oners. The lack of a reformatory value 
in the camp system is due in large part 
to the content with which it fills the average 
negro. Says one state official: “Ninety per 
cent, of these niggers are perfectly happy. 
They’re living better than they can live at 
home. Fewer of the Florida convicts re¬ 
form than in the states where they keep up 
the old prison system, because they are 
the low-downest lot of people in the coun¬ 
try and they can’t be made any better. You 
don’t have any such class in the North. 
They’re just animals, without any regard 
for human rights or human life, aud it’s 
queer that a lot of them call themselves 
preachers.” 

Most of the whippings are given because 
of the men fighting among themselves. A 
strap 20 inches long is the instrument of 
rebuke, but only 15 blows may be struck at 
one session. Two weeks must then elapse 
before physical pain is again inflicted. There 


is little doubt that in the evil days prisoners 
were whipped to death, some of them re¬ 
ceiving 150 lashes at a time, every lash tear¬ 
ing the skin and drawing blood. The pun¬ 
ishment is milder now. Yet it was the sig¬ 
nificant remark of a guard, the other day, 
that “when we take a strap to one of those 
fellows he ain’t no good afterward.” 

The democracy of crime 
exposes white convicts to 
the same suffering and 
degradation as the blacks. 
A murderer who had been 
a figure in society was 
assigned to one of the camps as a bookkeeper, 
men of education and manner being in de¬ 
mand for such offices, but an exigency having 
arisen one day, he was ordered to trundle 
a wheelbarrow. He protested that he had 
never done a negro’s work before and never 
would. Being led to the barrow and forced 
to take the handles, he fell to the ground, 
feigning to be overcome with weakness. The 
mine owner struck him a couple of taps with 


WHITE MEN 
AND BLACK 
FARE ALIKE. 


a cane, sighed and abandoned the situation. 
No sooner was he out of sight than his over¬ 
seer marched to the prostrate convict and 
administered a larruping that made him roar 
for meycy. Ir. five minutes he was pushing 
his barrow with great enterprise, promising 
to distribute phosphate all over the place, 
and that was the last of his experiment in 
rebellion. 

Shackling is seldom practiced, except as a 
punishment for runaways, as it interferes 
with work. . It consists in chaining the legs, 
just below the knee, so closely that the cul¬ 
prit can move only by short steps. Th® 
weight of this chain is relieved by attaching 
it to another chain, about the waist. 

Such of the men as wish to do so may 
work overtime, and they are paid from 10 
to 20 cents an hour. One gentleman who 
blew off the top of another gentleman's head, 
in the belief that the gentleman who is at 
present without a head had cast doubts on 
his gentility, earns a dollar a mouth, which he 
sends to his family, in an eastern country. 
A few of the convicts—very few—have laid 
away a hundred dollars, and are looking for¬ 
ward to a large and joyous time, on their 
release. 

Little or nothing is done for the better¬ 
ment of the men, intellectually, nor is any 
trade taught to them. Missionary enter¬ 
prise expends itself chiefly in the distribu¬ 
tion of tracts which, it is asserted, are read 
by many of the prisoners, inasmuch as they 
are not allowed to gamble. Offenders under 
the age of 16 are sent to the reformatory, 
and white convicts are commonly assigned 
to offices and cook shops, or become gang 
foremen. The few women that Florida 
juries are so ungallant as to send into penal 
servitude are usually employed in house¬ 
work. For the white prisoner, whatever his 
offense, there Is always a hope of pardon. 
The black prisoner, unless he is merely a 
crap player or chicken thief, warmly con¬ 
gratulates himself that he is consigned to 
healthful, open air work, for he remembers 
how dreadfully easy it is in Florida for a 
black man to get himself lynched. 









Complete Isolation. 



HEX Charles Dickens 
was in this country he 
said that he "came to 
see two things: the 
Falls of Niagara and 
the Eastern Peniten¬ 
tiary of Pennsylvania. 
He was graciously 
pleased to be pleased 
with the Falls,' but 
the prison bothered 
him. He found one 
old reprobate there 
who was serving a long,term, whose tears 
and moans and appeals cut him to the heart. 
Crafty old cove, that reprobate, for so soon 
as he got out he went to considerable trouble 
to get in again, and when he had the choice 
he always committed h:3 crimes near Phila¬ 
delphia, solely that he might be sent back 
to this prison. Here , he spent years of hie 
life, and Dickens died long before he did. 

The reason for Dickens’ curiosity respecting 
this institution was that it had gained a world 
fame as a place of terrors, for here had been 
originated a system of solitary confinement, 
so called, which was alleged to rob the pris¬ 
oners of hope, of health, of reason and of 
life. The system has been modified in the 
last half century, aud it is now called separ¬ 
ate, rather than solitary,'confinement. Soli¬ 
tary confinement pertains only to the dark 
ages—to the era of email tyrants, and dun¬ 
geons—but even separation of prisoners is im¬ 
possible so long as a prison containing 763 
cells must be used for. over 1,100 convicts. 

The war of systems has raged for fifty years 
without coming to an end, but with, the in¬ 
tensifying of the instinct for, aggregation, 
that shews itself in. the. desertion of the 
country and the disproportionate increase of 
the towns, the congregate system has many 
more- advocates at present than does the sep¬ 
arate system which is continued at Phila¬ 
delphia. Adherents of the Auburn or congre¬ 
gate system, whereby prisoners are brought 
together in shops and quarries, claim that by 
association the men are made more cheerful 
and tractable, that their health ia therefore 
better, that by separating harsh people from 
one another society is setting an example 
of harshness more intolerable than is that of 
the criminals themselves, that when bad men 
were put into cells alone thev spent their 
time in thinking up revenges and planning 
crimes, that on release the men are not qual¬ 
ified to go into a world which they have 
almost forgotten, and, what worries the man 
who pays the taxes, the expense of the separ¬ 
ate system is heavier than that of the con¬ 
gregate, since the man who is to stay by 
himself for years must have more room than 
the convict who merely Bleeps in his cell and 


MERITS OF THE 
SEPARATE SYSTEM. 


leaves it at dawn to work, and must earn 
less because he cannot have machinery driv¬ 
en by ste^m. 

The advocates of 
the separate sys¬ 
tem. on the con¬ 
trary, claim that 
their method is morally the best, be¬ 
cause desperate men are not thrown into 
association to concoct fresh crimes or teach 
evil to younger associated), because when a 
man is confined alone he will ^voi’k better 
than when his attention is distracted by the 
noise and crowd around him, because he has 
time and tendency for repentance and is 
not encouraged by the presence of other of¬ 
fenders to continue an air of bravado and 
defiance, or attempt rebellions against discip¬ 
line, and because on leaving the place he will 
not be recognized by other occupants of the 
prison and dragged down into bad company. 
For it is recorded of graduates from other in¬ 
stitutions of the sort that they have been en¬ 
ticed and hounded and betrayed aud black¬ 
mailed, though it is not the ex-convicts alone 
who have done these evil things, but former 
keepers or guards of the prisons who have 
fallen from grace. Moreover, there is a 
great advantage in t>e Pennsylvania system 
in respect of government and discipline, for 
each-convict is treated individually, and there 
can be no epidemic of disorder such as we 
hear of now and again in the congregate.es-' 
tablishnients. There is the: same diversity 
among offenders as among the inoffensive and 
when each of the inmates is secluded he is 
susceptible ot treatment, moral, mental-and 
physical, that may be adapted to his need. 
When authorized prison visitors enter .his 
cell, to argue and plead with him-to im¬ 
prove his morals, he is far more likely to re¬ 
sign himself to their influence than he w ould 
be if a company of sinners was grinning at 
him from another part of the • room and 
ready to gibe him for yielding to persuasions 
of Sunday school folk. 

But whatever the merits and demerits of the 
separate system, one can no longer find a pris¬ 
on in this country where the practice of it. 
is absolute. It is" no longer possible to make 
it so in Philadelphia, because that once,moral 
town has increased in size and wickedness 
till “doubling up’’ is necessary. In the hos¬ 
pital cells and in one or two of the others, 
peopled By skilled or trusted convicts who are 
employed together, say in carpentry, plumb¬ 
ing or anything of that sort, there are as 
many as four beds. 

TALKING CANNOT iV’t 

there shall be no 
talking, except dur- 
[ ing exercise, do you suppose the man exists 
i who would be locked up with another for 


BE STOPPED. 


years and not say anything? Indeed talk is 
sometimes necessary, because the men will 
be found at work together, and they must 
consult on the tvay of doing the work. There 
are frequent differences of opinion respecting 
the opening of the 1 ventilating windows, and 
the'amount of bad tobacco that ought to he 
smoked in a close room, and the time when 
the steam ought to be turned on in the pipe, 
and other matters of the sort, and, not being 
free to part company in case of disagree¬ 
ment, the roommates, fall to fighting. Birds 
in their little nests agree, but not litt.e Jail 
birds. After a fight there is a divorce of the 
partners, and by a provision of the law there 
need be no joint.occupancy of an apartment 
in the first place if a prisoner objects. 

The mau' who . demands separate confine¬ 
ment must be allowed to have it. Fortunately 
for the officers,'who would otherwise be put 
to it to provide quarters for more men than 
there are. cells, most of the misdemeanants 
prefer cpmpany. at least.on entering; yet there 
are not a few who positively prefer to be 
ajqne. • One picturesque looking pirate in a 
red cap, with tattooed arms bared to the 
elbow, was. weaving furiously on a rude loom, 
operated by hand, for there is no steam or 
ojher artificial power in the prison, and I 
asked him what his preference would be. 

“Sure, I’d rather be wid folks,” he an¬ 
swered.- “I • was a-boss weaver in Lawrence, 
and that’s why I-come-to be weaving here. 
I had pienty of company in them days, but 
I don’t so much mind bein’ widout it here. 
Sure isn’t it better to be alone than in bad 
company?” He said this without the least 
twinkle of the eye. He was a murderer, and 
the most troublesome and ill tempered man 
iri the penitentiary. 

Another convict, who w'as also a w f eaver, 
was decidedly opposed to congregate pris¬ 
ons. 

; “I used to work in a coal mine, and I’d 
rather be there,” he said, with a smile, “but 
I want no company in my eel!. I’d sooner be 
alone with nothing to bother me. 1 have my 
mind on my weaving, and while I’m here I’d 
rather wmrk this way.” 

CONVICTS WORK T n h X?j~“ 
HARD FOR PAY. as l * use(1 for th * 

, j , , convict dress. His 
allotted task was.ten yards a day, but it was 
his custom to weave forty. For all over the 
ten compulsory yards he receives one cent 
a yard. Another w r hio weaves checked ging¬ 
hams has a task of eight yards a day, but 
he elects to make forty, and as he receives 
V/ 2 cents a yard for all extra, his daily sav¬ 
ings are nearly half a dollar. The same al¬ 
lowance aud similar tasks are given to the 
weavers of bed ticking and, in fact, the stents 
ane never severe enough to task the resources 
or strength or health of the captive. 

The trades practiced in the cells are varl- 
















13 


PRISONS OF THE NATION AND THEIR INMATES. 


r » * 1 


































14 


PRISONS OF THE NATION AND THEIR RTSM. 


cus, and most of them, are learned on the 
premises. They include ehoemaking, chair 
bottoming, brush making, stocking weaving, 
and the making of cigars, rag carpets and 
cocoa mats. As in other states, the labor 
unions have influenced legislation and have 
thrown many of the convicts out of work. 
The law permits only a tenth of the prison¬ 
ers to work at any one trade and the con¬ 
tention has been made that the law absolutely 
prescribes labor in the Pennsylvania prisons 
except on the part of one-tenth of the total 
number of convicts. These laws are injuri¬ 
ous to the welfare and discipline of the pris¬ 
ons, and are an injustice to the taxpayers of 
the state, since the prisons cease to be self- 
supporting. Although frequent outcries are 
made over the alleged inroads of convict labor 
into the field of free work, the facts and fig¬ 
ures do not hear out the allegations and 
theories of the agitators. 

In its architectural form the Eastern Peni¬ 
tentiary differs from any other in this coun¬ 
try, the suggestion for it having probably 
come from a design by Jeremy Bentham, 
which he called the Panopticon, because 
from a central point one was supposed to 
see everything. The cells occupied galleries 
in a round building, like that used in our 
time for panoramas, and as all of them 
opened toward a central rotunda, a watch¬ 
man in a station opposite the top row had 
the whole place under his view, for he could 
look into every cell. In this Philadelphia 
institution the ceils are practically closed 
by wooden doors, in addition to the gratings, 
and no attempt is made to inspect all of 
them from any central point, but the ten 
wings of the penitentiary are open to view 
from the central rotunda, and no door can 
open, no person can go or come without be¬ 
ing plainly seen by the corridor guards. Two 
of the newer wings do not open directly on 
the rotunda, but the difficulty of observa¬ 
tion is overcome by placing mirrors at such 
an angle that they will reflect the passages; 
therefore, the whole prison is practically 
under watch of the officers. 

The cells are larger 

NO HOPE OF and lighter than those 

ppp*pp LlCDC of the usual prison. 

coottrt ntnt. They are ai:ched and 

there is a small window high in the gable of 
each one—too small for escape, even if es¬ 
capes were attempted, which they are not, 
often, for it is of no use to try to get out. 
There are dogs in the yard, and there is a 
eighty wall, 40 feet high, surmounted by a 
date roof which overhangs IS inches, so that 
even were the convict to reach it he would 
have to perform some difficult acrobatic feats 
in order to gain the top. The guards, secure 
in the security of the prisoners, have no 
stations on this wall, they carry no guns, 
pistols or blackjacks, nor does one hear from 
them the rough and violent language which 
is no unusual thing in prisons. Indeed they 
appear to be on friendly terms with most 
of their charges, and when they unlock and 
enter a cell the greetings are “Hello, Dan,’’ 
and “How are you. Jim, and how are things 
going in the yard?” 

What might be called the social atmos¬ 
phere of this presumably unsocial place is 
agreeable as compared with that of some 
prisons. Not that the ideal is to be attained 
in this respect in any prison, or any place 
that is not a prison, if it comes to that; but 
there is less of bullying and bossing and 
temper on the part of the guards and less 
of fear and sullenness on the part of the ! 
prisoners. There is at least an outward ap¬ 
pearance of resignation that resembles con¬ 


tent. To he sure, the prisoners have ad¬ 
vantages that are not given to all convicts. 
The watch is less strict and suspicious than 
in most correctional institutions; the cells 
are larger, nearly double the size, indeed, 
of the average prison apartment; most of the 
cells have little yards in which the men 
exercise or disport themselves for an hoar 
or more on pleasant days; there is a good 
library; the prisoners are allowed to take 
the daily papers and magazines; they are 
permitted to have files, saws, knives and 
other tools, so long as they are used in their 
employments, and there is less restraint in 
respect of gifts from friends and relatives 
outside than in most places of the sort. 

While I was talking 

FLOWERS FOR with one of the guards 

a large bouquet and a 
basket of flowers were 
brought into the corridor. They were in¬ 
tended for a young man who shot a girl in 
a fit of jealousy in a hotel a few years ago, 
and is > expiating his offense by a life sen¬ 
tence. The man was an actor, and these 
floral gifts are not infrequent. He was 
called into the corridor to receive the gift, 
and accepted it gratefully with a bow and 
thanks. Hardly had he returned to his cell 
before it occurred to one of the officials that 
the basket had not been thoroughly exam¬ 
ined, and it was brought back-in a hurry. 
Nothing that was dangerous was found in it, 
however. . _ 


A MURDERER. 


“We have to be careful in these matters,” 
said one of the guards, “for a while ago a 
pot of flowers was sent to one of the prison¬ 
ers here, and by good luck it broke in the 
hands of the express messenger who brought 
it. A couple of pistols fell out of the earth 
that the plant had been put in. Still, it 
isn’t that sort of thing we have to look out 
for, so much as it is rum.” 

Another unwonted liberty accorded to the 
prisoners is that of wearing their hair and 
beards as pleases them. The usual convict 
has his scalp visited by a lawn, mower on his 
admission to a prison. There is a sanitary 
reason for this, though the principal object 
in cropping the hair is to enable the hunters 
to identify the convict the more readily in 
case of an escape. In Russia the identifica¬ 
tion is still easier, because only one side of 
the head is shaved. And in nearly all penal 
institutions the convict must wear a shaven 
lip and jowls, though he is allowed to grow 
a beard or mustache just before leaving pris¬ 
on, that he may not go back into society 
with the prison mark upon him. If a Phila¬ 
delphia convict elects to s'have he may do so, 
and may borrow the official razor twice a 
week. The trusties, or, as they are - called, 
“runners,” none of whom is allowed out¬ 
side of the walls, may even be shaved ar¬ 
tistically by a prison barber, although the 
functions of that individual apply rather to 
the smoothing of official countenances. 

In theory, at all events, the inmate of the 
Eastern Penitentiary is secluded from the 
society and even the observation of his asso¬ 
ciates. His vaulted chamber is closed by a 
grated door set in a wall of needless thick¬ 
ness, and in the older wings these doors are 
curiously low and narrow, requiring the pris¬ 
oner to stoop and almost to turn sidewise to 
enter them. A fat burglar would have to 
undergo the Banting or an equivalent sys¬ 
tem before he could force an entrance. These 
doors are only 4 feet high and 17 inches wide. 
In the newer wings, and in such of the prison 
as has been modernized, the doors are of the 
usual dimension. In addition to this grating 
the prisoner is separated from the world by 
a heavy door of wood, which slides across the 


opening, but is usually left ajar. Formerly 
the wooden doors were kept tight, so that 
even the sounds in the building came to the 
ears of the men only as vague rumors, but so 
many of the inmates appealed against this 
pract-ice, begging that the doors might at 
least be opened for coolness’ sake in summer, 
that the warden finally told them they might 
have them partly opened so long as they be¬ 
haved well; but that on the first infraction 
of the rules the doors would be closed again, 
and they have never since been permanently 
shut. 

CONVICTS HAVE fastened by a latch 

TO WEAR MASKS. ^ 

which likewise secures the iron door more 
firmly. The opening is so slight that the oc¬ 
cupant of a cell has the merest glimpse of 
the corridor, but cannot see into the cell on 
the opposite side. When a visit is made to 
the cell of any man the guard makes sure 
that the cell on the opposite side is closed. 
In addition to these precautions the men are 
masked when they go out for exercise in 
the general yard, the mask resembling that 
worn at fancy balls—a piece of cloth falling 
over the face and pierced only, by eyeholes. 
These disguises give to .the convict an un¬ 
canny and sinister appearance, but they 
serve their purpose, presumably, in pre¬ 
venting recognition, and thereby save the 
feelings of such as have feelings. 

The wooden door bears the name and num¬ 
ber of the man whom it conceals, but it does 
not state his offense. The number corre¬ 
sponds to that in the warden’s list, and that 
contains the prisoner's recofd. The first 
prisoners were numbered up to 10,000 and the 
second 10,000 were classed as A. The pres¬ 
ent household has not completed the B class. 
As the penitentiary dates from 1827 this 
means that Pennsylvania must be a moder¬ 
ately good state, even if Mr. Quay does live 
there. Seldom is reference made to the of¬ 
fense of the prisoner in his presence. There 
is a desire to spare his feelings. For the 
same reason it is not permitted to turn the 
camera upon him. When I took photographs 
in and about the place all the men who were 
tvorking about the corridors were ordered in¬ 
to their cells, though some qf th^m appeared 
not to care in the least whether they were 
photographed or not. 

SYSTEM MAKES tured looking man, 

seeing me produce a 
note book to record 
some figures, glanced up with a smile and 
said, “If I’d known you were coming I'd 
have asked you to dinner.” Then, in some dis¬ 
quietude, he exclaimed, “You haven’t got a 
camera, have you?” On being assured that I 
had none at hand, he picked up his dinner, 
which consisted of a lump of meat in a pail 
and some bread, and was apparently resdy to 
enjoy himself. 


MEN GENTLE. 


This man was a type of many in the place. 
Separate confinement seems to make them 
more kindly and gentle. It does not appear 
to influence their temper or spirits to the de¬ 
gree that enemies of the system declare it 
does. And the reports of the institution show 
a truly remarkable result in health and san¬ 
ity. So far from turning the men into luna¬ 
tics—as it might, however, if the solitude 
were long and unbroken—it is declared that 
although there was one suicide last year, 
none of the inmates have become insane, at 
least during the several years in whjch the 
present warden has been in charge, and that 
the death rate is the lowest of .any prison in 











PRISON'S OF THE NATION’ AND THEIR INMATES. 


15 


the United States. Last year only fourteen 
convicts died, among 1,900 who were confined 
here. 

The sanitary condition of the place is in 
part responsible for this showing, in the ma¬ 
jority of American prisons there is a prison 
within a prison.; That is, the cells are in 
tiers facing a hall bounded by the outer shell 
of the building which contains the windows. 
In the Philadelphia institution every cell 
contains a. window—a small one to be sure, 
too narrow to see from, unless one looks at 
the sky, and much too small to allow escape, 
but it admits direct light and the air comes 
through it straight from out of doors, not 


In those wings 

NO CHANCE FOR where, for lack of 

ground room, it has 
been found needful 
to add a second story, thereby creating a gal¬ 
lery tier, it is of course impossible to pro¬ 
vide the prisoners upstairs with yards, hence 
the overhead men are led out for exercise in 
the general yards of the prison. The upper 
cells have ventilating shafts extending over 
the yard partitions and terminating in the 
general yard beyond them. Were it not for 
this arrangement the men in the lower tier 
could whisper through these ventilators 
while they were at liberty in the cell yards. 


COMMUNICATION 


he knows that the one who is listening at 
the other end of the steam pipe is not a 
prisoner, hut a guard. 

While discussing these various ways of 
talking and telegraphing in the cell of an in¬ 
nocent looking fellow who had been caught 
in the act of entering, somebody else’s house 
through a window, the prisoner laughed aloud 
and exclaimed, “They’re onto us. They 
know everything we do.’’ But by the same 
token, many of them know what the guards 
do, also. It is hard to account for the way 
in which news spreads in these great coiigre- 
gations, but it does spread. Yet the warden 
of this prison assured me he had never ob- 



CENTRMl TOWER ’wHERE’THEN^INCj?) 
MEET. THE DOORS LEAD INTO CELL; YARDS- 


ACROSS THEYNCUySURE, EASTERN^ S 
PENITENTIARY, PHIL A. SHOWING L1TTLEJARDS 
BEHIND CELLS., s - -- 




TWO OF THE WINGS IN EASTERN 
PENlTENTJAR'rl, PHILADELPHIA . 


ajOIME OF\THEWINGS;&HOW 1 NO DOUBLE.TIER OF 
CE LllcbEASTE RMJT NiTE NTIARY. PH 1 LAV 


fouled by the usual odors of confined spaces. 
This window is at the peak of the gable, and 
under it is the door leading Into the little 
yard. This door itself contains a window 
which the inmate can open, thus admitting 
air and a little light. In Winter the windows 
may a:: oe closed on sharp days, and a steam 
pipe runs through each ceil, so that it is com¬ 
monly warm enough. Men who w'brk hard 
prefer plenty of air and do not want the 
steam turned on or the windows closed until 
their task id done, whereas they may have a 
cell mate to whom no work has been given 
and who, because he is not keeping warm by 
exercise,' Will complain of cold and presently 
fall to fignting over it. Then he becomes 
too warm and has to be cooled officially. It 
ia not heat that causes all the trouble, 
though. Sometimes it is discussions on re¬ 
ligion. A fact* 


ossibly it will be thought that they do not 
id cannot communicate with one another, 
then a man has little else to occupy himself 
ithal that is exactly what he will set him- 
slf to do: to talk with his neighbors. He 
ill tap on the wall till he attracts the no- 
ce of the man in the next cell, and will 
ilk to a prisoner as far away as ten 
ells, through the sewer pipe that passes 
own the tier. He will institute a system 
f raps, like the Morse alphabet, and thus 
pell out words and sentenced. Under the 
ircums.tances it is doubtful if he aeeom- 
lishes any mischief, and he develops ingeu- 
ity in devising ways of communication. It 
, pretty certain that in lack' of a personal 
iceting, any device for escape will come to 
othing, and as a matter of_ fact attempts of 
bis sort are almost 'unknown. Nor is he 
kely to unbosom himself completely when 


served that the men in his charge had good 
or bad days, in some institutions, not need¬ 
fully punitory in character, for schools are 
subject to these influences, there are days 
when climatic or other agencies are at work 
and when it seems as if the Old Boy had 
been let loose among the residents. On such 
days the inmates are lazy, or they are nerv¬ 
ous. or they are intractable or morose or 
noisy. It is quite likely that the hypnotism 
of crowds, which always hold themselves 
as ready for evil suggestion as for good, is 
inoperative in a place where the crowd never 
comes into touch with itself, and so never 
realizes that it is a crowd.' 

The time of exer- 

ONE MAN HAS A cise is variously 

PRIVATE GARDEN. 

tin whether they go out or not. Few of 

























































































1G 


PRISONS OF THE nation and their inmates. 


the men take any interest in their bit of 
ground, in spfte of the fact that if they did 
so they could doubtless obtain the liberty of 
those places all day long. There is one pris¬ 
oner who has developed a taste for garden¬ 
ing, and he is permitted to spend practically 
all of his time out of doors. He raises 
flowers and ornamental plants, boxing them 
carefully at the onset of winter and re'sum- 
\g his work eagerly In the spring. There 
Is a well kept greenhouse In one of the gen¬ 
eral yards, which is partly under the charge 
of the comedian who killed his sweetheart. 
Such visitors as obtain admission may buy 
bouquets here lor a small price. It is obvi- 
i us that a willingness exists, even if no ef¬ 
fort is made, to put the men at congenial 
employments, and the pity of it is that legis¬ 
lation should make idleness compulsory 
upon so many of those who by the very 
reason of their wrong tendencies most need 
to be kept at useful employments. 

The earnings of those convicts who wisely 
occupy themselves are saved for them against 
the time when they shall receive their di¬ 
plomas and graduate, yet they can draw on 
this fund, if they wish for knickknacks for 
their cells, for papers and magazines or for 
gifts to friends or relatives outside. One 
man succeeded in earning enough to pay the 
rent of a place in the country where his 
family was living, and this implies hard 
work at current rates in the Eastern Peni¬ 
tentiary. Another prisoner who was there 
much longer than he cared to be, saved no 
less than $2,200. With this tidy sum he was 
a deal better off than the average citizen 
who has never been locked up. On the day 
when he obtained his freedom he,demanded 
his money. ‘’No,” said the warden. “I’m go¬ 
ing to let you have only $30.of it.” 

“But it’s mine,” protested the convict. 

“I don’t deny that, but I~am going to keep 
the rest till I see what you will do with this.” 

“I’m entitled to my money.” 

“And you shall have it. Take this $30, go 
to town, have a good time and then come 
back for the rest." 

And he did. He 

EARNED A FARM thought the mat- 

WHILE IN PRISON. ‘f over ’ 

the money delib¬ 
erately and not unprofitably, getting back 
into the ways of the world again, and in a 
week he was back at the warden’s office 
for more cash. “You’re right,” he admit¬ 
ted. “If I’d ha’ had that money when I first 
got out I'd ha’ blowed it in.” He “blew in” 
the remainder wisely, for with it he bought 
a farm in Pennsylvania and is living on it 
and working it to-day. 

He is, therefore, living in greater com¬ 
fort than he enjoyed while he. was earning 
the money to pay for, the farm, for it is not 
desired nor intended to convert prisons into 
daces of such attractiveness that people will 
struggle to get into them. The cells, though 
furnished according to personal caprice, 
where the convict has the means to indulge 
it, are bare, because the bare w r all is the 
clean wall and does not shelter vermin. The 
bed is simplicity itself—two wooden “horses” 
supporting three boards on which is placed 
a thin straw mattress. Each participant in 
the hospitalities of the state receives three 
sheets, three blankets, two pairs of stock¬ 
ings, one coat, one vest, one pair of shoes, 
two .pillow slips, two shirts, two pairs of 
drawers and tw r o pairs of trousers. Friends 
in the outer world may send to them slip- 


MAKES TROUBLE. 


pers, underclothes and suspenders, as well 
as an allowance of tobacco, although this al¬ 
lowance must never exceed a pound a month. 
The runners, or trusted prisoners, have a 
ration or allowance of a pound of tobacco 
monthly, and their positions are, therefore, 
prized and envied. There are many appli¬ 
cants for the privileges of runners, solely 
because they receive tobacco, and when the 
allowance was cut down to half a pound the 
applications for places as runners fell off 
notably. 

There is a daily change in diet. Coffee 
and bread are provided every morning and 
such of the bread-as is not then eaten is put 
aside for the late meals. There is no stint 
in the quantity of anything, each man having 
all he wants of every item on the bill of fare. 
For dinner there will be, on one day, bean 
soup with pork, on others pot pie, mutton 
stew, boiled meat with dressing and potatoes, 
cabbage soup and dough balls, and on Sun¬ 
day the dinner consists of a pound of meat 
with sweet potatoes. The evening meal con¬ 
sists of bread and cocoa, but on four nights a 
week there is a dessert of ginger cakes or 
cheese or stewed prunes, or stewed apples 
or peaches. Raw onions are likewise in¬ 
cluded in the dietary. The sick have their 
own kitchen and the cooking here is better 
than the average. The invalids also have 
good nursing, and although they are confined 
like the others, their apartments are larger, 
lighter and better cared for. 

“DOUBLING UP” L here put tW into me a 

single cell the 
same order and 
cleanliness that would be possible in a cell 
with’only one inhabitant become hardly possi¬ 
ble. There is a litter of clothing and 
personal effects which crowd - the apart¬ 
ment. In the cells where weaving Is done 
by two occupants in alternation one of the 
pair must make his bed on top of the loom. 
In summer a contention may arise, as the 
heat up there is oppressive, and each man 
wants the other to have the worst of it, no 
matter how much he may think he prizes so¬ 
ciety, but in the winter—ah, then it may also 
cause a riot, because each may want it, for 
the same reason that makes it undesirable 
in summer, namely, that it is warm. 

The furnishings of the cells are interesting. 
Such things as easy chairs are found, there 
are not a few photographs and prints, there 
are mats, rugs and strips of carpet,-cabinets, 
desks and shelves: one man has a violin, but 
is not supposed to play on it in the day time, 
because others might stop their work to 
listen. One prisoner has a copy of “The 
Angelus” and several have photographs of 
actors and celebrities. The portrait of the 
President occurs, and there is no bar to re¬ 
ligious pictures. Odd mottoes are also 
placed on the walls: “Rejoice and Be Exceed¬ 
ing Glad,” “Two Birds in a Gilded Cage,” 
‘‘Beware of Pickpockets,” and “Glad to See 
Your Back.” These things are not all sent 
in by friends. Many of them are made by 
the prisoners themselves. One of them has 
a rudely but patiently embroidered lambre¬ 
quin bearing the spread eagle and the na¬ 
tional shield and his materials were threads 
of blue from frayed trousers, gray from his 
stockings and red from his shirt. 

It upsets theories to find that many of the 
inmates of the Philadelphia prison thrive in 
body without work, however it may fare with 
their intellects and souls. When a man can¬ 


not find anything to do he may send to his 
family for materials to work upon. It would 
be an ideal place in which to write a book 
until the Authors’ Union heard about it and 
got the usual bill through the Legislature to 
prohibit the manufacture of history and 
fiction in penitentiaries. But if one may 
not compose books he can read them. Each 
man has a printed catalogue of the 10,000 
books in the library, and he is allowed to 
draw three of them every week. This is 
in addition to the papers and magazines and 
to the tracts that are left by Sunday visitors, 
who also distribute many copies of the Catho¬ 
lic Standard. 

miMlOUMrUT There are no physical 
r UlMlorlm tIM I punishments for rebels 

NOT PHYSICAL an ; 1 “ isch ;* f makers ; 

t but the cutting off of 

privileges, such as reading and visits from 
friends is dreaded. The discipline, how¬ 
ever, is good. According to the reports it is 
hardly equaled elsewhere in the prisons of 
this country. The daily exercise in the 
yards and the half hour walk and setting up 
exercise prescribed for those who have 
no yards, appear to allay prison nervousness 
and there is a disposition to obey the rules 
and earn an early discharge. In twenty- 
three years only one man has lost his com¬ 
mutation of sentence and he was the 
most obstinate fellow that the officers were 
ever called upon to deal with. He was a 
murderer and he announced on entering the 
place that he would do no work. The 
auempt was made to bring him to terms. 
He was allowed to see nobody, he was kept 
on a bread and water diet, he had no privi¬ 
leges and no comforts, but never a whit 
budged he from his determination. At last 
his health was so shaken that it was decided 
to put him on the same terms with the other 
prisoners; yet for twelve year 3 he merely 
sat in his cell, doing nothing and thriving. 
He was kept in practical isolation all that 
time and was not apparently affected by it. 

About a hundred of the convicts avail 
themselves every year of the opportunity for 
study. A teacher is provided who gives free 
instruction in the elementary branches, and 
several hard looking citizens may be found 
poring over arithmetics and geographies in 
the pauses of their work. It is possible that 
i some of them undertake this belated instruc- 
j tion because they gain thereby the brief 
society of a teacher. Gang association is 
most missed and most wished by the most 
| depraved, but association of some sort is 
preferred by the majority. There is no as- 
j soc-iation, even on holidays, among the mass 
of the prisoners. On Sunday religious serv¬ 
ices are held, a preacher and choir occupy¬ 
ing the end of each corridor, but the pris¬ 
oners remain in their cells and listen or not, 
as they like, unseeing and unseen. 

There are many depraved men among the 
hundreds that occupy this abode of outcasts, 
yet the order and even the cheer that per¬ 
tain among so many of them and the rela¬ 
tive neatness and quiet of the place make 
one ask whether Pennsylvania produces a 
somewhat better order of criminals than 
common, or whether there is not virtue 
in separate imprisonment. At all events, 
while sympathizing legislatures have prac¬ 
tically abolished the system in the United 
States, its advantages have appealed to those 
on the other side of the sea and increasing 
numbers of advocates are found for it in 
Europe. 

















The Probation System. 



ASSACHUSETTS has 
taken the lead of 
tfie other states in 
the reformation of 
reformatory meas¬ 
ures. New York, to 
be sure, established 
the Elmira Reform¬ 
atory, in which the 
indeterminate sen¬ 
tence was first put 
to the trial and found good, but Massachu¬ 
setts has not stopped with her reforma¬ 
tories; she is introducing the ticket of leave 
in all of her institutions, and she is doing 
more than any other state has done to protect 
the criminal by accident from the conse¬ 
quences of crime that would be visited on the 
criminal by intent. She is well supplied with 
defenses against the depredator; she has a 
state prison in Charlestown, a state farm 
for short term prisoners and vagrants at 
Bridgewater, an asylum for the criminal in¬ 
sane at the same place, a reformatory for 
boys and men at Concord, a reformatory for 
girls and women at Sherborn, three houses 
of correction, nineteen jails and two schools 
for minors w'hich are operated on the 
“open” system like that in vogue in the 
siate reformatories of California. 

Yet, with all this outfit, the aim is to keep 
people from being locked up. And with 
what success one may guess when he sees 
the figures; something like 40,000 people re¬ 
leased on probation during the last ten 
years, and most of this number justified the 
official mercy. Massachusetts is not alone 
In enjoying the benefits of civilization. Crime 
is decreasing every year, though it is in 
lesser offenses that? the diminution is great¬ 
est, murders, outrages and large thefts con¬ 
tinuing as of yore. Yet it must be remem¬ 
bered that stationary figures would repre¬ 
sent an ever decreasing percentage, since 
the population is growing all the time, and 
growing fast. 



STILL GOOD. 


Oldest of all stale 

OLDEST PRISON prisons in the country, 

that in Charlestown— 
built in 1805—is yet 
(he superior in many ways of Sing Sing, for 
it has been modernized, while Sing Sing has 
not. For instance, the cells in the New York 
prison are but little over a yard wide, 
whereas the Massachusetts institution, 
though originally as meager in cell room, 
lias been enlarged by tearing out every sec¬ 
ond partition, thus making one cell of two, 
the result being that each inmate has room 
and light and air; he has, moreover, a sim¬ 
ple grated door, instead of the iron plates 


and lattices that are still in use in Sing 
Sing. A new wing is entirely modern and 
is probably equal in construction to any 
ether in the world. The ventilation is per¬ 
fect, for there is an alley between the cell 
blocks instead of the crevice that in Sing 
Sing can be reached across by small handed 
prisoners who have occasion to pass files 
to one another through the ventilating aper¬ 
tures. 

In its form the edifice presents the cus¬ 
tomary wings radiating from a central octa¬ 
gon, each wing separated from the hub by, a 
cage of bars reaching from floor to ceiling, 


are devised for the occupancy of a nominal¬ 
ly incorrigible class, and these measure ,13 
by 16 feet and are 12 feet from floor to ceil¬ 
ing ridge. 

Where a man is to have no exercise in the 
air—at least, only an hour and a half a week 
—he needs a larger cell than common, that 
he may pace up and down, and also that ap¬ 
pliances for some industry may be installed 
there. Such is the Pennsylvania system for 
corrigibles and cranks alike. Incorrigible* 
are not generally recognized, but in Massa¬ 
chusetts these larger rooms have been built 
for them in several institutions, and with 



so that all the corridors are visible from the 
guard room. The shops are in buildings 
across the yards and inside the walls. Both 
shops and prison are well lighted, the win¬ 
dows being tall, and as the cell doors con¬ 
sist merely of upright bars the light enters 
every room, except the few dark cells where i 
punishments are suffered for infraction of the 
rules. The old cells measure 5 by 9 feet on 
the ground, and are feet high; the new 
cells are 8 feet by 12 and 8% feet high, and 
no cell should be smaller than this. Then 
a few cells are still larger, inasmuch as they 


a gain to the general morale, as it removes 
from the shops and chapels a few troublesome 
and even dangerous fellows. In the shops 
a man who secretly foments discords, whis¬ 
pering mutiny, spreading discontent, malign¬ 
ing keepers, is marked as an “agitator,” and 
] if he will not reform he is consigned to a 
solitude where he will see nobody, where his 
food will be passed to him through a hole 
in the heavy wooden door that, in addition 
to the grating, separates him from the world, 
and where he will put seats into chairs, or 
go on short diet till he does. 

































18 


PRISONS OF THE NATION AND THEIR INMATES. 



ggpSgpi ♦«! 


REFORMATORY PRISON 
v FOR WOMEN, 5HERB0Rfi,MASS 


INC0RRIG1BLES 
NOT NUMEROUS. 


At this writing there 
are but twelve occu¬ 
pants of the incorri¬ 
gible apartments, and 
*s some of them are under watch as sus¬ 
pected lunatics perhaps not more than seven 
or eight are really what the name implies. 
Indeed, the trouble makers are generally 
men of short wits and twisted wits. The 
name of agitator, which has been given to 
them, carries a sting in it, for prison authori¬ 
ties all over the land dislike the labor 
unions, who send agitators to the legislature 
to demand that work be given over in the 
penal institutions, or that it be reduced to a 
minimum, ox that certain trades be not 
taught, or that only certain men be allowed 
to work at certain callings, or that there be 
no sale of prison made goods, and a dozen 
other interferences, that result in yearly 
deficits where the convict formerly paid his 
own way, that put upon the taxpayer the cost 
of his support, that cause lowered health and 
Increased insanity, in relaxations of disci¬ 
pline that come through idleness and, worst 
of all, in return of the convict to society as 
ignorant and useless as he left it. There can 
be no reform without employment and there 
can be no employment without disturbing the 
mind of the professional agitator, and there 
is a growing belief that it is better to disturb 
the agitator’s mind than to upset the econo¬ 
mies of the .state and perpetuate a vicious 
class, instead of redeeming it. Fear of com¬ 
petition, which the agitator is constantly pre¬ 
tending. is absurd. The handful of men who 
make horseshoes, for example, will never 


sit and read, they are locked at night in 
cages, each by himself. Reading is en¬ 
couraged and there are 8,500 books to draw 
from, in the library, and an hour a day 
school sessions are held. All who need 
schooling are cordially invited to attend. 
Cordial invitations in Massachusetts are not 
enforced with whips. Corporal punishment is 
forbidden, and in several of the institutions 
has never been practised. The discipline is 
generally strict, however, and the keepers 


present there are not even stripes, the dress 
being a dull, coarse suit of gray, and there is 
no shaving or cropping of hair. The parole 
system, in certain other states peculiar to re¬ 
formatories, has been introduced into the 
prison and albeit the Charlestown institu- 
tidn is for old offenders, it works well. 
Twenty-five to thirty men are freed every 
year on probation, and the returns of those 
who violate the parole have been but one a 
year. About two-thirds of the inmates are 


■ 








W8B3B 


Mil 


**■ 


. V 












V 




the: central octagon 
E jTATE. prison 


employed on productive industries, which 
comprise the making of boxes, brushes, cloth¬ 
ing, shoes, harnesses, trunks and cloth. The 
othets are runners, clerks, carpenters, bar¬ 
bers. blacksmiths. machinists, menders, 
painters, bakers, waiters, nurses, librarians, 
gardeners and-laborers about the institution. 

Some liberty is allowed to each man in the 
matter of ceil decoration. There is a brass 
and string band which plays on Sunday in the 
chapel, and on holidays in the yard, and the 
hours of work are- not severe, namely, from 
7:30 to 5, w ith an hour and a half recess at 
noon. Cri working days there are three meals 
for each man: on Sundays and holidays, when 
no work is done,, only two, but the Sunday 
dinner is extra in quality and 'quantity. A 
daily change of menu is offered, and the diet¬ 
ary includes baked beans—this is in Boston— 
rice, bread, mush, real milk; soup, hash, tea, 
coffee, sugar and one boiled dinner weekly, 
with soup meat. There are delicacies for 
holidays, and friends are allowed to send in 
a limited number of additions. Catholic and 
Protestant services are held in the same 


menace the freedom or prosperity of the ro¬ 
bust company of habitual blacksmiths out¬ 
side. 

Charlestown prison has 800 cells and 850 
men to put into them. Xot ail the extra in¬ 
habitants are doubled up, however. Short 
term men sleep on cots in the corridors, 
which is an improvement on the closer con¬ 
finement. The health rate is good, and the 
deaths number but four or five a year. The 
hospital is not a dormitory, for though there 
is a large general room where convalescents 


declare that the convicts prefer it so, for 
they see that under a rigid rule there will be 
no favoritism, no insecurity, and that the 
I sanitary standards of the place will be kept 
1 up. 


PAROLE SYSTEM 
WORKS WELL 


Relaxations from old 
methods are already 
to be seen, however. 
Formerly the dress 


of the convict was glaringly conspicuous. The 
| subject was red on his right side and biue on 
I his left. That costume was quitted, till at 


room, at different hours, on Sunday, whereas 
in some of the states the Catholics insist on 
a separate chapel. Except in the putting 
apart of ineorrigibles, there is no classifica¬ 
tion according cither to term, conduct or his¬ 
tory. 

The idea of associating a prison with the 
name of Concord is repellent to most people. 
It was a Concord that the Americans made 
the first blow for liberty; it was here that 
Hawthorne wrote his haunting romances: here 



































PRISONS OF THE NATION AND THEIR INMATES. 


19 



pPA corridor: 

CONCORD 

REFORMATORY^ 


.'—w r'''’'’'' f vv''''vwn 
s fe"'-.' ’"'ft ✓'- 


that the divine Emerson pronounced for hope 
and faith; here that Thoreau defiantly lived 
his own life, and here that a company of 
dreamers, poets and enthusiasts carried on 
their school of philosophy. Yet, what nobler 
work can be done than that of saving the 
lives of the mistaken? The hundreds of 
young men who graduate from the reforma¬ 
tory in Concord—to say true, It is just outside 
of the town, and its presence is not a grief 
to your hero worshiper—have never heard 
much of Emerson, but they, nevertheless, 
leave the place with stronger brains, clearer 
vision, more skillful hands, and it should be 
with softer hearts, than they took there. 

Massachusetts was the second state to cre¬ 
ate a reformatory and thereby discriminate 
between hopeful and supposedly hopeless 
cases. It followed Elmira, and built this in¬ 
stitution at Concord in 1881. Here the inde¬ 
terminate sentence Is in practice, and the 
warden has it in his power to release an in¬ 
mate on parole whenever he thinks his act is 
justified by circumstance and results show 
conclusively that it is. There is more elas¬ 
ticity as to age than in Elmira, for a boy of 14 
may be received here, but so may a man who 
is over 40. The average is 20 years, and the 
number of inmates will not be far from 870, 
which, fortunately, is less than the number 
of cells. 

AMCDIPAM? 1,1 m ° St 0t the Ameri ' 

Am tnlLANo can prisons Americans 

are in a minority. At 
least, the immediate de¬ 
scendants of foreigners added to the aliens 


the Irish constituted a majority of the occu¬ 
pants in Eastern penal institutions, but the 
people of this race are retiring before the 
in-rush of the Slav, the Italian, the Greek 
and even the Arab. French Canadians are 
the most plentiful contributors to the popula¬ 
tion of Concord Reformatory, they or their 
children numbering 162, while the Irish and 
their sons were only 149, and English 42. 
The commoner offenses are those of most 


and so long as they hold office it will be im¬ 
possible for younger men, students of pen¬ 
ology, progressive, well trained, to secure 
places. All things considered, however, a 
satisfactory progress is made at Concord, 
and really surprising work is done both in 
the schools and the shops. Unlike Elmira, 
no company organization is established here, 
and there is no military drill. In the trade 
schools the men learn to cane chairs, weave 


IN MINORITY. 


Q 3 


X.. : 

' '■ v J 


DEPARTMENT FOR, INCORRIGIBLE^ 
CONCORD REFORMATORY^-ig^^ 


BETTER CLOTHES FOR 
GOOD CONDUCT. 


raise the number high above that of the na¬ 
tives. Last year 671 persons were committed 
to this institution, and of this number only 
183 were of American parents. Considering 
the character of European immigrants who 
have settled in this country for the past thir¬ 
ty-five years, there is nothing surprising in 
this. On the contrary, the readiness of the 
new people to accept the conditions they find 
here, to send their children to our schools, 
and, so far as they may, to abide by our laws, 
4a commendable and remarkable. Formerly 


American communities: assault and battery, 
stealing and drunkenness. 

In Massachusetts there is a law making it 
mandatory to give certain positions to vet¬ 
erans of the Civil War. if they pass the ex¬ 
aminations; hence, young, vigorous, espe¬ 
cially trained and adapted men, who might 
be valuable as reformatory teachers, bosses 
add keepers, are kept out, and their places 
are taken by elderly men, not over strong 
or specially qualified. Few of those now in 
service are less than 55 years of age. 


cloth, set type, make shoes, tinware and 
pearl buttons, do ordinary and some extra¬ 
ordinary blacksmitliing, and make and carve 
furniture. The artistic ingenuity shown by 
some of the lads in the designing and orna¬ 
menting of woodwork excites wonder. Be¬ 
side these matters a number of the men 
work on a farm of 750 acres, and shortly be¬ 
fore his discharge the convict is put upon 
out-of-door work in order to bring color back 
to his face, harden his muscles, and take 
away the convict look that he might other¬ 
wise wear. 

On his en¬ 
trance t o 
the reform¬ 
atory t h e 
student is shayed and sheared, but after 
that, as he is unlikely to acquire animated 
additions in or about the place, he is free to 
we£.r-his hair and beard to suit himself. The 
new comer receives a rather rusty dress of 
black, and,is informed that he is in the sec¬ 
ond grade. If he is punctual, industrious an£ 
progressive he is advanced to the superior 
grade, indicated by a suit of fresher black 
-with a corporal's chevrons. A star in the 
crotch of the chevron marks a perfect rec¬ 
ord. If instead of progressing the boy is 
sulky and disobedient, he finds himself in the 
lowest grade, where he wears a suit of dull 
red. There is here, as at Charlestown, a de¬ 
partment for incorrigibles where no less 
than 35 are housed at present. They arc 
kept in solitary confinement, in cells of ex¬ 
tra size—12 feet by 12 on the floor and 1 feet 
high—with windows closed by canvas, so 
that they cannot see out of doors. The usual 
cell is a trifle small, being 5*4 by 9 feet and 
8 feet high. It has running water and the 
inmates are allowed to add to the furnitur* 









































20 


PRISONS OF THE NATION AND THEIIl INMATES. 


in small ways that will increase their com¬ 
fort. The attitude of the staff toward their 
charges is authoritative yet kindly, and an 
earnest effort is made to foster every tend¬ 
ency toward a sane and honest life. 

Mass is said in the chapel every Sunday 
morning, and not long ago there was a con¬ 
firmation class, when the archbishop presid¬ 
ed in full canonicals, and music was pro¬ 
vided by the choir of inmates. In the schools 
it is evident that progress is made from the 
high percentages and the satisfactory na¬ 
ture of the examinations. The class in eth¬ 
ics tackles some large subjects, as you may 
see from this syllabus, which is offered by 
President Hyde of Bowdoin: 


ments and the chances of his securing work. 
If all is favorable he gives his parole and 
the state pays his board for a week while he 
is brushing around and looking for a job. 
At the same time, the state keeps its eye 
on him. and if he- returns to bad company, 
or is caught stealing, or gets drunk, or if he 
fails to report monthly for a year, he may 
be returned. There were fifty returns to the 
reformatory last year. • 


In Sherborn.not 

ONLY REFORMATORY far from Con¬ 
cord, is wliat 
was, till quite, 
recently, the only reformatory for women 
in the country. It is not merely a state 


FOR WOMEN. 


requires good looks and vivacity. The suc¬ 
cess of some of these unfortunates in at¬ 
tracting remunerative attention is quite re¬ 
markable and seems unjustified. 

Here, as in Concord, the effort is to teach 
and reclaim, rather than to punish. On en¬ 
tering the inmate is assigned to the second 
grade, whence she works her way upward 
to grade 4, and then leaves as soon as may 
be. She occupies a usual sort of prison cell 
at first—a cell in a corridor opposite a 
window, with a .grated door and bare walls 
of stone, the only decoration being a picture 
cut from some publication and pasted on a 
cardboard, with .explanatory; text on the 
back. This picture is changed every week 


Object. 

Duty. 

Virtue. 

Reward. 

Temptation. 

Vice of Defect. 

Vice of Excess. 

Penalty. 

Food and Drink. 

Vigor. 

Temperance. 


Appetite. 

Asceticism. 

, intemperance. 

Disease. 

Dress. 

Comeliness. 

Neatness. 


Vanity. 

Slovenliness. 

'Fa'stidioOsness. 

Contempt. 

Kxercise. 

Recreation. 

cheerfulness. 


Excitement. 

Morbidness. 

Frivolity. 

Obstruction, 

Work. 

Self Support. 

Industry. 


Ease. 

Laziness. 

Overwork. 

Debility. 

Property. 

Provision. 

Economy. 

Prosperity. 

Indulgence. - 

Wakefulness. 

Miserliness. 

Poverty. 

Exchange. 

Equivalence. 

Honesty. 

Self Respect. 

Gain. 

Dishonest. . . 

;Comp!lance. 

\\ ant. 

Sex. 

Reproduction. 

Purity. 

Sweetness. 

Lust. 

Prudery. 

Sensuality. 

Degradation. 

Knowledge. 

Truth. 

Veracity. 

Continence. 

ignorance. 

Falsehood. 

Gossip. 

Bitterness. 

Ti me. 

Co-ordination. 

Prudence. 

Harmony. 

Dissipation. 

Procrastination. 

Anxiety. 

Distrust. 

Space. 

System. 

Orderliness. 

Efficiency. 

Disorder. 

Carelessness. 

Red-tape. 

Discord. 

Fortune. 

Superiority. 

Gourde. 

Honor. 

Risk. 

Cowardice. • 

Gambling. 

Shame. 

Nature. 

Appreciation. 

Sensitiveness. 

Inspiration. 

Utility. 

Obtuseness. 

Affectation. 

Stagnation 

Art, 

Beauty. 

Simplicity. 

Refinement. 

Luxury. 

Fgliness. 

; Ostentation. 

V ulgarity. 

Animals. 

Consideration. 

Kindness. 

Tenderness. 

Neglect. 

Cruelty. 

Subjection. 

Brutality. 

Fellow Men. 

F ellowship. 

1.0 v?. 

Fnit.v. 

Indifference. 

Selnshness. 

Sentimentality. 

Strife. 

1 he Poor. 

Help. 

Benevolence. 

sympathy. 

Alienations. 

Niggardliness. 

1 Indulgence. 

Antipathy. 

W rongdoers. 

Justice. 

Forgiveness. 

Reformation. 

Vengeance. 

Severity. 

Lenity-. 

Perversity. 

Friends. 

Devotion. 

Fidelity. 

Affection. 

T?etrayal. 

Exclusiveness. 

Effusiveness. 

Isolation. 

Family. 

Membership. 

loyalty. 

Home. 

Independence. 

Self efficiency. 

Se! f-obl Iteration. 

Loneliness. 

State. 

Organization. 

Patriotism. 

Civilization. 

Spoils. 

Treason. • 

■ : Ambition.. • 

Anarchy. 

Society. 

Go-operation. 

Public Spirit. 

Freedom: 

Self-interest. 

Meanness. 

Ofttolousness. f 

Constraint. 

Self. 

Realization. 

Conscientiousness. 

Character. 

Pleasure. 

CnscrupUlousness. 

Formallsfm. 

Corruption 

God. 

Obedience. 

Holiness. 

Life. 

Self-will. 

Sir,.. . 

i Ilypccfisy. , 

Death. 


HARD QUESTIONS 
FOR STUDENTS. 


A recent examina¬ 
tion paper required 
answers to ques¬ 
tions like these: 
What is anarchy; how does it differ from 
socialism; what is co-operation; describe the 
co-operative store; what is the relation of 
co-operation to competition; show w'hy co¬ 
operation succeeds in England and fails 
in America: what are some objections to 
Socialism; what is society; why is society Im¬ 
portant in the study of ethics; how should 
tnankind deal with the question, “Am I my 
brother's keeper?’’ what duty do members 
of society owe to each other; show how so¬ 
ciety is fulfilling its duty to the world. How 
many lads in the common schools could 
reply to all these? 

A pamphlet is given to each man, in which 
he finds set forth' the rules of the institu¬ 
tion as.well as good counsel and incentives 
to obedience. While there is no whipping 
every lad knows that misbehavior incurs a 
loss of privileges. Those in the first grade 
may be visited by friends once a month, 
but if they fall into the second grade the 
visits are restricted to one in two months, 
and in the third grade there can be no visit¬ 
ing. Again first grade men may write to 
friends every Sunday; second grade men 
«very second Sunday, and third grade men, 
not at all. First and second grade prisoners 
may receive fruit and such like on Saturday, 
but the hebetudinous person in the lowest 
grade may copsider himself fortunate to get 
hash. The diet is limited but wholesome 
and includes all the bread that the inmates 
wish, coffee in the morning and cocoa foi 
supper. 

The convict who is sent to Concord for 
five years for a felony may be released in 
one year, and the misdemeanant who goes 
there for two years is eligible for release on 
probation in nine nionths. The applicant for 
release is examined, privately, by one of the 
prison commission and its secretary, who 
send men to inquire and investigate as to 
his history, his home, his recent employ- 


institution: at least strangers from as. 
far away as Oklahoma are ^ received there, ! 
provided their own states will pay.board, 
to . Massachusetts. In this place, too, the 
indeterminate sentence gives the power 
of liberation to the -superintendent — a 
woman, by the by, fer there are no men j 
about the place except a few laborers and 
watchmen. No inmate has been sentenced 
for less than a year, but any convict may 
be released after that period, and most of 
them gain their freedom by agreeing to go 
out to domestic or other service. They are. 
indentured to manufacturers or farmers in 
the neighborhood and, if no damaging re¬ 
ports are made about them, they are free 
for good and all. While at work outside 
they arc not required to report, but the 
authorities know' pretty well what they uro 
doing. 

Sherborn prison occupies three large par¬ 
allel brick buildings on a hill, and is sur¬ 
rounded by a wall, conspicuously lower than 
the wall of the average penitentiary or jail. 
You see, women cannot climb fences. 
Moreover, the windows are not barred, but 
merely covered with a net of heavy wire 
that a man criminal would spend most of 
his time in sawing. Men are better me¬ 
chanics than women, but what is the differ¬ 
ence,.so long as women are so much better 
behaved that they do not need to be me¬ 
chanics? The average number of residents 
in Sherborn Is only 200. While the disci¬ 
pline is not severe, it is inflexible, and there 
are few attempts to overthrow it. Not even 
tantrums, the time honored privilege of the 
sex, are permitted now. This is a hardship, 
still one grows used to almost anything. 
Probably tantrums would not be much of a 
comfort, anyway, for most of the women 
are not of the nervous and impressionable 
sort. They are, as a class, lumpish in body 
and mind, prematurely old and dull of coun¬ 
tenance. To succeed in some kinds of vice 


and comes out of what is.called the picture, 
library. If bad behavior does not consign 
.her to. the .low .class, or grade 1,. the inmate, 
who has been studied to make sure that she 
is uot going to develop disease or insanity, 
advances to grade 3. Here she enjoys an 
.immediate improvement ip her state. She 
has a larger, higher, lighter cell, really a 
bed chamber, with a window commanding 
something of a view from its upper half, 
a better picture ou the wall and wooden 
doors, locked, to be sure from the outside, 
but pierced with slats for ventilation. She 
also has a white spread on her bed and 
three times a week, at noon, she fore¬ 
gathers with her classmates in a recrea¬ 
tion hall, where she occasionally hears 
music aud where some of the officers read 
aloud. 

Formerly the 

LESS TALK, inmates were 

BETTER CONDUCT. “ t *“;; 

but it was found that they never talked of 
anything elevating and most of them reverted 
to their old lives as subjects for conversa¬ 
tion, so the talk was stopped, and the con¬ 
duct and discipline immediately improved. 
Good conduct in the third grade soon makes 
a way for admission to the fourth, and in 
this the comforts are still greater. The cells, 
so called, are ample: each has a table, an 
electric light, a wider bed than, in the other 
grades, with a husk mattress on it, the 
others being fjlled with straw. The pictures 
on the walls are still larger and better, 
there is a larger library to draw upon and 
the recreation room, with its papers and 
magazines, its caged birds, its plants and 
flowers, is cheery. Here the abler ones 
speak pieces and read from good books, and 
there are asking of questions aud discussion. 
This room is open every noon and on Mon¬ 
day night- The study of authors has re- 










































21 


PRISON'S OP THE NATION AND THEIR INMATES. 




cently been taken up and you shall hear dis¬ 
coursing on Whittier and Longfellow, and 
even on Browning. 

Also, there is a music class on Wednesday 
night3 and progress has been made in this 
direction, a good choir having been picked 
for the chapel exercises. Music is to be 
heard in the chapel every evening, as well as 
in the Sunday services, which comprise Cath¬ 
olic mass, Protestant service and Sunday 


UNCERTAIN. 


CURES IN MORALS 

that are effected 
here, it would be 
impossible to give conclusive figures. It is 
said - that women are more immediately 
amenable to good influences than men, but 
that they lapse into old ways more easily. 
As no watch is kept upon them after they 
have served their time, and as it would be ob- 


REFORM BEGINS 


Massachusetts does 
not wait till It has 

IN POLICE COURT. «^d ^er criminal. 

She begins her re¬ 
formatory process in the police court. There 
are in the state seventy probation officers, 
of whom two, in Boston, are women, whose 
duty it is to attend trials in the lower courts 
and where possible secure mercy for sucli 
as deserve it, as many do. It is odd to note 
the discrepancy between police reports and 
the findings of these agents and of reforma¬ 
tory officers. The police, of course, see the 
worst of people. A lad is caught stealing. 
Ergo, he is to be arrested and punished. It 
does not enter into the calculation of the 
policeman that the lad is not habitually a 
thief, and that he has been discovered in 
possibly the only serious offense of which 
lie was ever guilty in his life. Those facts 
the probation officer does find, however, by 
inquiry in the home and work shop of the 
prisoner, and it is seldom that a judge re¬ 
fuses to listen to the pleadings of the agent. 
Forty thousand men and women who would 
otherwise have gone to jail or prison for 
slight offenses, to their disgrace and the dis¬ 
tress of their families, have in ten years 
been set free on probation and have in the 
majority of cases lived up to their promises 
and given no trouble afterward. When a 
drunkard cannot be trusted with his money, 
yet works with tolerable steadiness so long 
as he has none to spend, the agent may re¬ 
ceive his wages and give them to his family. 
One such family begged that the system be 
continued indefinitely, for it never lived so 
well when the “old man” took his Saturday 
wages as it had during the sixty days iiy 
which he had agreed to deliver his envelops 
to the probation officer and so stay out ot 
jail. 


school. The low grade students eat from 
tin plates and cups, but the fourth grade 
women have a spacious dining room, with 
table cloths, china, salt shakers and palms 
on the table. The upper grades support a 
temperance society in which there are con¬ 
dolences, since it is not possible to secure 
anything stronger, except in case of illness. 
Of hospital cases there are more in propor¬ 
tion than in the men’s prisons, yet the 
general health seems to be excellent. 

The shops are large, clean, quiet and are 
under the watch of women only. It is only 
necessary to touch a bell to summon assist¬ 
ance, should any be needed, but obstreper¬ 
ous patients are very few, and there is at 
this time but one incorrigible in the place, 
*oa she Is an idiot. The school rooms con¬ 
tain many grown women and learning comes 
hard to them. It hints at one of the reasons 
for misdirected life when middle aged people 
toil painfully through such informing mat¬ 
ters as “Is it a cat? It is a cat.” and slip 
up in adding four and four. That is, igno¬ 
rance is one of the causes of misdoing 
among women, as it is among men. Women 
are taken here from the ages of 15 to 50. The 


rlESS HALL, 


<Q> 


coacOFVD 
© 0*6 REi=0WAT ‘ 0RY -' 


grades are marked by differences in the 
plaid of the prison dress and trusties wear 
a little knot of red ribbon. In the pleasant 
chapel, with its flowers and plants, its 
pictures of the Virgin and the repentant 
Magdalen, it is significant that the great 
block of benches that takes most of the room 
Is for the upper grade, and that all the other 
grades together make but little showl"?. 


viously wrong to do so, and as many of them 
remove to other states, the actual value of 
the reformatory as a social or moral force 
cannot be estimated, but there is no dogbt 
that it is high. The inmates acquire at least 
a primary schooling, and in making up shirts 
and other garments for occupants' of various 
state institutions, they learn to sew. If also 
they learn to abstain from strong waters and 
*-Mo+y that Is not nDe, It is enough. 


Nor is this all, for Boston Is considering 
a plan for the prevention of crime, and this 
alone promises for the future of society. The 
plan is to weed out front the common schools 
the dull and defective and put them into in¬ 
stitutions where they will be subjected to the 
best influences. The curfew law works well 
in several towns, but the power of the state 
to enter homes and schools and begin re¬ 
forms in season is as yet lacking. But, pre¬ 
vention is better than cure. 




























































Obsolete Systems. 



EST known of all the 
prisons in the new 
world is the one at 
Sing Sing, N. Y. Its 
fame is not Cue to 
its fulfilling the re¬ 
quirements of a 
modern prison—far 
from it—but to its 
nearness to Ne.v 
York and its occu¬ 
pancy by celebrities who, from time to time, 
migrate “up the river” for the good of so¬ 
ciety and, it is hoped, for the good of them¬ 
selves. It might be supposed that the big 
city would produce the biggest rascals, be¬ 
cause it has the most and largest stakes for 
them and is best protected by politics against 
the righteous; yet, as a matter of fact, the 
small towns produce the same sort of depre¬ 
dators as the others, only there are fewer 
of them. New York City sends thousands 
of wrongdoers to jails, penitentiaries, re¬ 
formatories and refuges, and spares only a 
regiment for the permanent population of 
Sing Sing. That is, its usual number of 
prisoners is about 1,300, and nearly all of 
these come from the city. What might be 
called the bounds of the Sing Sing district 
occur at the Atlantic on the south and the 
latitude of Poughkeepsie at the north. 

The situation is beautiful. The Hudson, 
nearly at its widest here, stretches from the 
very walls of this place of gloom to the high¬ 
lands, looking up-river, to the harbor look¬ 
ing down, and on the opposite shore the Hook 
Mountains take on their most rugged aspect, 
deplorably rugged since the quarrymen began 
to tear the shores of this loveliest of East¬ 
ern rivers into pieces. Immediately behind, 
above the prison, the bank rises steeply and 
is crowned here and there with villas and 
dotted with pleasant cottages. The scar of a 
limestone quarry is the only defacement. This 
quarry is worked by the convicts and it is 
of the stone that came from it that the prison 
was built. 

Sing Sing village nas just had Us Indian 
name restored—Ossining—and it feels better. 
It says that it was so long associated with 
bad people that it was ashamed to look 
strangers in the face. But, bless its heart, 
doesn’t it know that the prison at Ossining 
is the same as the one at Sing Sing? The 
real gain from the change of name will be 
the disappearance of Sing Sing from minstrel 
jokes—ilttle jail birds that sing-sing, and all 
that sort of thing. 



SING SING A 
TRANQUIL PLACE. 


The village Is half 
a mile from the 
stronghold and is 
a tranquil place 
where the wicked seldom trouble and the 
weary often rest. Passengers flying toward 
Albany, over the tracks of the New York 
Central, have a momentary glimpse at the 
upper reach of the prison walls, pierced by 
hundreds of tiny window's, as the train runs 
through a cut, but it is a close mouthed 
place and tells little of itself to the pass¬ 
ing traveler. This largest of the New York 
prisons was designed as a congregate estab¬ 
lishment, and never isolates its occupants, 
except on Sundays, holidays and dur¬ 
ing the night. It is. In fact, the 
type of congregate house, thereby differ¬ 
ing from the Philadelphia peniten¬ 
tiary, w'hich, at least in theory, sepa¬ 
rates its inmates during their whole term 
of confinement, each man occupying his cell 
from the hour of admission till his release, 
and taking exercise only in a little yard be¬ 
hind his chamber. Whatever the merits 
of the Philadelphia prison—and Warden 
Johnson of Sing Sing concedes that there 
are several—there is no doubt that it is 
far and away the better of the New York 
institution in respect of architecture and 
adaptation. The Sing Sing barrack was 
put up in 1827, and has undergone no change 
since then. Offenders and those accused 
of offenses suffer a generous lack of consid¬ 
eration from legislatures and one might sup¬ 
pose, after visiting this place, that public 
opinion and public sense were to-day w'hat 
they were sixty or seventy years ago. With 
Sing Sing for a landmark it is easy to see 
how far we have gone in that time. We 
no longer believe that any reformatory ef¬ 
fect is to bo gained by putting the prisoner 
into a cubbyhole that he must enter side- 
wise by depriving him of light and air, and 
thereby injuring his sight and health to a 
degree that may impair his ability to earn 
his own living, and so continue him as a 
new burden on the community that sent 
him there; or, by keeping him under men¬ 
ace of death from fire. 

. i-t-. .. « ■ The P lan ° E Sin & Sihg 
PRISON WITHIN is the common one of a 

A PR1QOF! prison within a prison. 

H rniiUiM. That is there ls a cen _ 

tral structure, known as the cell block, w'hich 
gives only on a corridor, the block being sur¬ 
rounded by an outer shell of masonry. Both 
shell and cell block are immensely', absurdly 
thick. The cell space allotted to an unfor¬ 
tunate is only 7 feet long by 6'^ high by 


wide. Probably no other human beings In the 
world are cooped Into such tiny spaces as 
this. And to make the scheme more absurd, 
although there was room enough when the 
prison was built to have spread It over 100 
acres, if necessary, the cells are piled atop 
of one another to a height of no less than 
six tiers, necessitating a deal of stair climb¬ 
ing on the part of the prisoners and their 
guards, increasing the delay in assembling 
the men for work and in dispatching them to 
their cells at night, and especially bad in 
ease of fright or danger from fire. The roof 
and galleries are of wood, now' thoroughly 
seasoned by age and easily ignited by electric 
wire leakages. A wing was burned not long 
ago, and the lesson of the loss should have 
been heeded by the authorities. The main 
building is 500 feet long. 60 feet wide and is 
CO feet from floor to roof. Even worse than 
the prison proper are the shops, which are 
flimsily constructed, antique and either made 
of wood or containing a good deal of timber. 
They are occupied only during the day, how¬ 
ever, so that the danger from fire is reduced 
to a minimum. 

The cells in which the convicts must spend 
the greater part of their time, for hard labor 
is merely a judicial term, and means eight 
hours, could easily have been a foot larger 
in each dimension, for the wall between them 
is IS inches thick, and the door is a crack 
in the stone work, only 18 inches wide. A fat 
convict would have to be rammed home, like 
a cannon ball in ancient ordnance. When the 
resident is in for the evening he lets down 
his bed, which has been swung against tno 
wall, and he has room then only for a few 
thoughts. In many penal institutions the 
cells have little bits of printing or painting 
or the knick-knacks that Mrs. Partington 

calls “momentums” from home; they have a 
rug on the floor, maybe; a shelf of half a 
dozen favorite books; a camp chair or even a 
potted plant. 

When the Sing Sing 
man has insinuated 
himself into his quar- 
• ters he is thankful that 
nobody ever gave him anything except a 

sentence, for he simply would not know what 
to do with it. There is a shelf above his 
door that would hold the most of a book, 
if the binding was not thick, and there is 
room .on the floor for a bucket and his 
coffee cup. There is no plumbing and the 
only ventilation is such as he gets from the 
window's across the corridor, the said win¬ 
dow being but 24 inches high, 10 inches 
wide and crossed by iron bars—fellows have 
nevertheless wriggled through these peep 


CELLS ARE 
NONE TOO E 












SING SING PRISON, 


PRISONS OF THE NATION AND THEIR INMATES. 


23 



holes—while the only exit for foul air Is a hole In the hack wall 
about two inches in diameter, opening on a. so-called air shaft a 
few inches wide, that separates the 600 cells on the east side from 
the 600 on the west. This may carry off the merest trifle of ex¬ 
hausted air, but it is likely to be emptied into the cells above or 
below. To make a draft less possible the doors of the cells are 
veritable wickers of iron iu the upper half, the flattened bars ex¬ 
cluding light as well as air, and the lower part of the door, which 
might admit a little ventilation, is solid iron, The prisoner is 
supposed to have the breathing capacity of a mosquito and the 
strength of a Hercules. The only modern thing that has been in¬ 
troduced into the place is the electric light, which each man may 
burn till 11 o’clock, and which he sometimes burns to good purpose 
in study. 

Although 1,200 windows in the huge building pierce the four foot 
outer shell, each window is so small that the light which enters the 
corridors is insufficient, and on a gloomy day the artificial lights are 
turned on in the boxes of the gallery men. The roof, too, over¬ 
hangs in such a manner as to diminish the quantity. In short, the 
edifice is about as thoroughly out of date as it is possible for any 
house to be, in a country that prides itself on progressive ten¬ 
dencies. 

A clever architect might be able to modify it, but the best 
modification w-ould be its absolute destruction and replacement by 
a modern building. And there is'a hint of modern methods in the 
wing that Contains the keepers’ offices, the mess room, the chapels 
and the upper room that will be a hospital so soon as the old wooden 
roof has been taken off and a new fireproof one of metal has re¬ 
placed it, 

on raior at- The mess hall, on the fi rst fl° or . two °P 

bILENCE AT three feet above the ground, is an lm- 

IflYI CQQ RCPAQTQ mense room, and it is a notable as- 
ntrMolo. semblage that dines here every day. 
The men are marched in by companies and take their places at long 
tables of slate, each man seated on a stool and provided with a 
plate and cup of tin, a knife, fork and spoon and access to a wooden 
salt box that is passed from hand to hand, as it may be wanted. 
The meal is eaten in silence, save for such commotion as is mads 
by the clatter of the dishes and silence best becomes a joyless re¬ 
past like this. Tho place is none too light, and there is a displeasing 
odor of soap and soup and the indescribable effluvia from a crowd. 
Yet this is modern because it is built with a view to cleanliness and 
stability. It is of stone, cement and iron, hence is readily kept 
clean. The keepers stand between the tables and keep constant 
watch during the meal, and as the dinner party arises, by com¬ 
panies, and passes out, each man carries his knife, fork and spoon 
with him as far as the inner door and there, under the eye of tho 
watchman, throws them into a box, whence they are taken away by 
the kitchen gang for washing. The object of this is to prevent the 
secretion of these articles about the clothing of the men, who might 
fashion them ir.to tools to aid them in escapes, or even to use as 
weapons, (hough that is an absurd use to put them to. 

Should you chance to visit the prison during 
PRISON WALL A the Passover you will see at the entrance 

\A/AII IMF PI AFP to the dinin £ hall at noon a company of a 
WAILIIMu r LAOt. hundred men with faces to t{ie wall, like 

the Jews at the walling place in Jerusalem. They stand iu close 
touch, conversing or mumbling in low tones, perhaps praying, and 
seeming in no wise concerned by the clash of teeth and rattle of 
dishes a few feet aw-ay. These prisoners are Jews and they are 
observing the Passover feast. Some of them will eat a matzoth, or 
w-afer, of unleavened bread, but until the suu shall set few of them 
will take food. Most of the company have come here for setting 
fire to houses in order to obtain the insurance, and for other forms 
of swindling. A Jew does not often suffer imprisonment for vio¬ 
lence. The state of mind that enables a man to set fire to a tene¬ 
ment and imperil the lives of his neighbors, but will not permit him 
to eat on a certain holiday, is curious enough to deserve more at¬ 
tention from psychologists and moralists and educators than It 
does, for it ts a common state of mind. 

On a recent fast day, when meat was forbidden, a benevolent 
looking old man In spectacles, whose years and infirmities had 
licensed him in making the request, hobbled to the head keeper. 
Connaughton, and asked if he might have a special meal of potatoes 
and onions. The keeper told him to go to the kitchen and get it. 
whereupon the old man dropped to one knee, and, taking the 
keeper’s hand in both his own, kissed it fervently. It was a strange 
tiling to see on American soil. As the convicts -were marching to 
their cells that evening the keeper asked the old man if he had 
succeeded in obtaining what he wanted. With a seraphic smile he 
answered that he had, and, dropping on his knee again with the 
grace of practice, he grasped the hand of bounty with renewed en¬ 
thusiasm. The prison, fare is meager as to variety, as might be 














*4 


PRISONS OF THE NATION AND THEIR INMATES. 


expected, but not as. to quantity. The 
men appear to be in good condition and it 
Is said they have time enough to eat every 
meal, though I noticed that some of them 
were still eating when the signal came to rise 
and march out for work or exercise. The 
fare is hash and bread and coffee for break¬ 
fast, with a substitution of oatmeal for hash 
once a week; mutton stew, vegetable soup, 
salt codfish, pork and beans, potatoes or beef 
for dinner, with as much bread as each can¬ 
didate wishes and a pint of coffee, without 
sugar or milk; for supper, which is eaten in 
the cell, there is only bread and coffee, but 
there is as much bread as the prisoner 
chooses to take. As they come 'in from the 
shops in companies, in double file,-they pass 
into the main prison through a corridor in 
which stand two large trays. The first of 
these, trays is.filled with bread cut in slabs, 
about four to the loaf. The second, a step 
beyond, contains the same kind of bread, cut 
into slices of the usual thickness or thinness. 
As the companies enter the corridor they di¬ 
vide into single lines, and. each man as he 
passes takes one of the big slices and as many 
of the smaller ones as he pleases, or he'can 
leave the larger pieces and take the smaller 
a>nes only; but he can not take more than 
one of the bigger cuts. His coffee is in the 
cell when he reaches it, the runners having 
been there before him. 


If the prisoner is for- 

FRIENDS MAY tunate in his friends 

nrtin outside, he fares less 

SEND FOOD. hardly and lf as is 

commonly the case, he is of a sociable and 
generous disposition, his neighbors share his 
good fortune. For once in a-month a con¬ 
vict may receive from the outside world a 
supply of as much as sixty pounds of re¬ 
freshments, provided they are prepared for 
eating, for there must be - no cooking of 
them on the premises. Hence, these contri¬ 
butions consist chiefly of canned goods, 
boiled hams, dried or prepared fruits, 
pickles, condensed milk and the like of that, 
which each recipient keeps in his cubby 
hole find prays that he may find when he 
comes back from-work, for .in -the mean¬ 
time the hall men will have been through 
his P$iy sweeping and putting it ■ in order, 
And a piece oftCamamb-ert'cheese might as 
readily tempt-the hall man as any other 
person. Liquors are barred, of course, and 
it is said that not even the condemned re¬ 
ceive the traditional encouragement of a 
drop of brandy before being led to execu¬ 
tion. 

Which brings us to the most gruesome 
feature of the prison—its condemned cells. 
These are not in the main'building, but in 
an apartment behind the office of' the head 
keeper. They are somewhat'larger than-the 
older cells, as they should be when they are 
to be occupied for weeks, months, years at 
a time, and when the occupants are not al¬ 
lowed to exercise-in the air for even a min¬ 
ute. Each man Who awaits death in one of 
chese cells is under the eye of special watch¬ 
men, day and night, but, wonderful to relate, 
the confinement and the scrutiny and the 
awful knowledge of .coming death seldom grate 
on his nerves. His meals are passed to him 
through openings in the door, and if a friend 
or a lawyer sees him it is with a screen of 
bars to prevent a closer approach than five 
feet. In this narrow room, which he will 
leave only for the little chamber beyond, he 
eats, smokes and reads, and that is all. 


rk/n/M*r- The head keeper, 

DOOMED MEN who has seen the 

Coi LAPSE executi ° n ° f sen_ 

fence on scores 
of murderers, says that he has never known 
of an instance where a man collapsed on the 
way to the gallows or the electric chair. 
Death is usually merciful, but the shame of 
it and the horrent enginery of legal de¬ 
struction in a prison would make it hard for 
most men to face, even those who might lead 
a charge or face the leaden storm of a Fred¬ 
ericksburg without blenching. As a rule the 
man who is to be put to death on the mor¬ 
row spends his last night in sound sleep and 
eats a hearty breakfast, walks to the death 
chamber without a tremor, and replies in a 
clear voice to t^ie chaplain who gives his last 
consolations. It is to be borne in mind, 
however, that the murderer is commonly a 
man of little feeling, and it is likely also 
that his impending fate occasions a sort of 
numbness in his wits that prevents the full 
realization of what is coming. In a few in¬ 
stances,-too, a man may possibly be sus¬ 
tained by the-bravado of the ruffian and play 


NEVER 


his part to the last, sustained by a hope of 
impressing the weak minds he supposes to 
be capable of admiring the sort of man he 
is. Inordinate conceit is a common trait of 
criminals. 

It is iut a small minority of those who have 
taken the lives of their fellows who meet the 
fate they so rashly deal to others, and it is 
better so. There are extenuating circum¬ 
stances even in murder that the courts can¬ 
not recognize, and in convictions on circum¬ 
stantial evidence there is always the pos¬ 
sibility that the jury is. mistaken after all. 
Moreover, killing is but a return of brutality 
with brutality, and that is against the spirit 
of the age. There are buc five occupants of 
the condemned row, while there are in other 
cells sixty who are “lifers,” and may never 
achieve their liberty, alleit there is perhaps 
not one who does not sustain a hope of 
eventually receiving the governor’s clemency. 
The.oldest of. the “lifers” is known as Paddy 
the Horse, because of his once great strength. 
He killed his wife and is expiating his crime 
in weakness and blindness—a permanent in¬ 
mate of the hospital. The youngest is a sprig 
of a. boy, a lad of 14, who killed a comrade 
in the Catholic Protectory a year or so ago 
end killed him in Deliberation and cold blood. 
There is nothing in his appearance to sup¬ 
pose him to be the feliow that his act de¬ 
clared him. He is one of the best behaved of 
all the prisoners and works steadily, quietly, 
at a case in I he printing office, whence issues 
one of the most remarkable papers in the 
country, the Star of Hope. 


CONVICT PAPER 
UNCOMMONLY BRIGHT. 


I. u c 


would ie 
you sub 
scribe fo 

it you would find pleasure and profit in road 
irig this bi-weekly. It is uncommonly brigli 
and is written, edited and printed entirely b 
the inmates. There are correspondents am 
contributors in the prisons at Auburn. Danne 
mora and even the asylum for insane crimi 
nals, and the r-aper is given free* lo ever; 
guest of the state in those places. The mora 
tone of this sheet is unexceptionable. Tb 
literary quality is as high as in many publi 
cations cf wider circulation and paid contents 
and the hopes, the economic vlfews, the recc.l 
lections and observations of the writers an 
the more interesting.because of their novelt; 
and unexpectedness. The jokes 8 re as tic 


k'ing as any to be found In the humorous 
periodicals, and there are papers which dis¬ 
close not merely ability but learning. The 
authors have been students, travelers, ob¬ 
servers, gentlemen. The Star of Hope is a 
fulfillment of its name In more than one re¬ 
spect. It means not only the prisoner’s 
hope, but a hope of the world for the pris¬ 
oner. 

Sing Sing is a so-called first grade prison. 
That Is. it is intended for convicts who are 
serving their first term. As the courts do not 
always conform to this idea, and as New 
York City is the country’s principal supply 
station of criminals and as Sing Sing is 
nearer to the metropolis than any other con¬ 
vict station, all kinds are received here as a 
matter of fact—70 per cent, of all In the 
state. The sixty murderers are token enough 
of that. Then *here are nearly three score 
wards of the government, for this is one of 
the places where such can he received: coin¬ 
ers, smugglers (other than fashionable), bad 
men from government reservations, mail rob¬ 
bers, and so on. So nearly as may be, the 
older men in crime are kept apart from new 
comers, and the population is divided into 
three classes, the first consisting of new com¬ 
ers and tractable, who have steady work and 
all possible privileges, who become “trus¬ 
ties,” or outside messengers, hall men, 
clerks, gang bosses and gardeners. The sec¬ 
ond grade consists of those who served one 
term behind the bars before. They are or¬ 
ganized into separate companies and working 
gangs from the first grade men. 

The third grade consists of old offenders, 
and to them are given the hardest and most 
unpleasant jobs about the place, though nei¬ 
ther second nor third class men have steady 
employment. The three grades are distin¬ 
guished by stripes that run longitudinally 
around their uniforms, the first grade show¬ 
ing the zebra marks, the second the same 
except that the stripes are in pairs, and in 
the third grade they are trebled. 

There is yet a 

CONFINEMENT CURBS fourth class, 

but it is 
small, and is 
made up of so-called incorrigibles, usually 
men with evil tempers who have never 
learned to control themselves, and who are 
constantly and purposely violating the rules, 
shirking work or exhibiting a surly or re¬ 
vengeful disposition. Wiese men seldom 
work at all, but are confined in their cells 
and turned out only for occasional exercise. 
Solitary confinement usually brings them to 
terms in a few days, and it is a curious fact 
that many of the most desperate men make the 
best prisoners. The murderers, for instance, 
are a tractable community. The discipline 
of the whole body appears to be good, and 
there are no insurrections. It is, of course, 
understood that the prison of Sing Sing is for 
men and boys only. Women were formerly 
confined in a separate structure, on the hill 
opposite the larger building, but except when 
they have committed murder and are sent 
here to be killed, they are now lodged in 
Auburn. 

A distinction is made between men of the 
different grades, not alone in their appear¬ 
ance and employments, but in the manner 
of their coming and going. The first grads 
men are paired and walk in military step, 
while in the older grades the lock step is 
required, the men facing away from tha 
guards and marchifig as close together as 
possible, each with his bends plseej light]* 


INCORRIGIBLES. 







PRISONS OF THE NATION AND THEIR INMATES. 


25 



WHE.K& XHg_5TQh£ CUTTERS WQf^l^ J 


go to state prisons, asylums, 
the extent and nature of the 

schools and hospitals. A recent daily summary will 
employments, as well as anything else, and here it 

give 

is: 




. 42 


*> 

Clothing department . 

. 74 


. 26 





Brush and mattress department . 




Printing and stationery department. 

. 37 


. 9 


. 67 


. 6 




. 28 



Tobacco factory . 

. 1 

Condemned men . ... 

. 5 


.127 




. 90 


. 8 


. r.8 


. 40 


.281 


— 


_ 27 





The Invalids 

SOME ARE do not include 

HOPELESS INVALIDS. *" th ' 

about twenty men will usually be found, 
some of them consumptives, who will never 
leave the place on foot, and the forty men 
classed as idle are new prisoners, in quaran¬ 
tine for twelve days, the object of this isola¬ 
tion being to discover if they have or have 
not any infectious disease, or if they are 
insane. The population is of course fluctu¬ 
ant, for second term men belong in Auburn 
Prison and sometimes go there, and third 
term offenders go to Clinton or Dannemora, 
while the insane are secluded in the asylum 
at Matteawan. Whether or not the most of 
the occupants of this house go back to for¬ 
bidden ways, it is estimated that not more 
than five in a hundred reappear at Sing 
Sing. That gives no hint as to the effect of 
the prison cure on crime, because it is natu¬ 
ral to suppose that few of the inmates re¬ 
turn to their old haunts or resume their il¬ 
legal practices among men who know their 
history. They drift away to other states. 

It rests with most of the inmates whether 
they will return to the world better or 
worse, but the agencies for advancement are 
more and better than in the districts of the 
city whence most of them came. There is, 
for example, a well picked library—well 
picked, because “thud and blunder,” as one 
man described it, has been culled out, and 
this library contains 8,000 volumes. There 
is a school which is attended by a number of 
promising and even performing pupils, who 
may take their books and slates with them 
to their quarters. There are not at this 
time any Eugene Arams in the company, 
yet it would be possible to make an exhibi¬ 
tion of scholarship to surprise the outsiders. 
In the library, to accommodate these social 
misfits, there are books in French, German 
and Hebrew, as well as in the vernacular. 


on the ribs of the man in front of him—a 
chance to trouble the ticklish members of 
the community. They must keep step even 
when the line comes to a temporary stand, 
as it does when passing the bread trays at 
supper time. The shuffling step sounds over 
the stone floors like the gasp and whish of 
a steam engine. 

It is said that women are quite intractable 
in this matter of keeping step, and that they 
must even be allowed to go their own gait. 
Recently marching drill has been introduced 
and bands of men are to be seen going 
through their paces in the yards behind the 
institution under the orders of a keeper. 
The drill is a good thing, not merely be¬ 
cause it takes the men into the air, but be¬ 
cause it accustoms them to ways of order 
and promptness, increases their power of 
self-control and improves their physique, for 
which reasons not all of them like it. 

M ork in the shops was almost suspended 
while the unions were assailing prison labor, 
but now that the limitations are understood 
the shops are places of much activity. There 
are employments of variety and each man 
is soon fitted to his work. All the products 
































































26 


PRISONS OP THE NATION AND THEIR INMATES 



THEIR FORMER PALS. 


For instance, 

PRISONERS BETRAY a man who 

has given his 
pedigree to 
the warden and has solemnly sworn that he 
has never been put into prison before, may 
be confronted in the shoe shop or carpen¬ 
ter shop by a man who once helped him to 
bleak into a house. This older resident 
will not unlikely report the history of the 
new comer to the keepers, and the new 
man will be assigned to harder work and 
worse associates in the other grades, or he 
may be handcuffed to some member of a 
party of emigrants and forwarded to Au¬ 
burn or Dannemora. The object of thus 
revealing the newcomer’s identity? Oh, any¬ 
thing; jealousy, old grudges, fear of encoun¬ 
ters, fear of exposure, hope of reward. 

As a prisoner advances in the confidence 
of his officers his chances for promotion to 
“soft jobs” increase. He becomes a runner. 
He goes outside the walls on errands. And 
it is the man on long sentence who oftener 
“arrives” than does the man whose off-n.-e 
has merited less opprobrium. His long years 
inside the walls chasten his spirit and bipd 
his legs with rheumatism. It may be, never¬ 
theless, that on his first outing, 
when he has been sent, for in¬ 
stance, to the quarry, or the gro- 


DIMING-ROOFT 
w AT 5IN(r SING 




Catalogues are in the shops, where they 
may be easily referred to, and it is of in¬ 
terest to know that there is a considerable 
demand for scientific works, especially those 
dealing with electricity. And this is a re¬ 
ligious community in its way. There are 
Chapels for Protestants and for Catholics, 
with mass twice a month, and there are Jew¬ 
ish services at monthly intervals, while mis¬ 
sionaries and clergymen have moderately 
free access to the place, the prisoners hold¬ 
ing their interviews with these comforters 
In the warden's office. 

VOLUNTEERS’ LEAGUE 

bers of the 
t'olunte era’ 
Prisoners' League, a society that was or¬ 
ganized by Mrs. Booth, and that is occasion¬ 
ally addressed by her and her fellow' work¬ 
ers. Tile Volunteers promise “by God's 
help” to pray morning and night, to read 
the Day Book, of scriptural selections, to 
refrain from bad language to observe pris¬ 
on rules, to cheer and encourage others in 
right living. Then there is a Bible class in 
charge of the chaplain, w T ho is a Methodist, 
and there are n’eetlngs in charge of women 
on week afternoons, from 1 o’clock to 4. 
A convict band of twenty pieces plays tor 
religious services. 


CHEERS CONVICTS. 


On entering th'e prison a man is made to 
bathe, is shaved, has his hair cropped close, 
and these marks are not to be changed un¬ 
til he is nearly ready to go out, when he 
is allowmd to grow ■whiskers or any other 
sort of facial ornament or concealment, that 
there may be no convict stamp on him when 
he leaves. He also has a Jittle money coming 
to him—a matter of a few dollars or a few 
cents, according as he has been good or bad. ; 
or as his term has been long or short. The 
state allowance to each is but a cent and ! 
a half a day, or 3 cents at the most, accord- I 
ing to the earnings of his department, but if 1 


he is riotous or disobedient and must be 
put into a dark cell he- loses 50 cents for 
each day so confined. 

While in the state’s custody he must not. 
write to or receive visits from any other 
person who is or has been a criminal, nor 
can an ex-convict w'rite to him or visit the 
prison. As to convict associations it is 
destructive of the notion that there is hon¬ 
or among thieves to learn that many of them 
will “give w’ay" on one another w'hen they 
discover old pals and prison, mates in the 
shops. 


eery, he will be overcome by his opportu¬ 
nities and will escape swiftly to the wilder¬ 
ness, and of all wildernesses that of the east 
side of New York City is the most effectual 
for hiding, provided he can change his con¬ 
spicuous convict rig for the customary habili¬ 
ments of society. 

It is odd that men who have served pa¬ 
tiently and faithfully and are within a few 
days of their discharge should run away 
rather than wait and receive their clothes, 
belongings and a clean bill of moral health; 
but none knows the charm of liberty so well 
as they who have lost it; and. x-'Ll it ma.v 













































totsons or mr. nation and their inmates. 


*7 


be that the fugitive has committed crimes 
elsewhere that he fears may have been traced 
to him and that on the expiration of his term 
he will find a sheriff from some other state 
awaiting him at the door with a requisition 
and a pair of bracelets in his pocket. 

The escapes are few; probably not more 
than one in a year; and are practically all of 
trusties. There is a constant study to defeat 
the scrutiny of the authorities, however, and 
odd devices have been discovered. One man 
crawled into a barrel, allowed that barrel 
to be filled with swill, and in that unsavory 
vehicle was carried into a vacant lot and 
dumped. Caution is constantly used to pre¬ 
vent these disappearances. 

CELLS LOCKED ,5. Z 

in two ways. comp : o ; e8 l , a ; e 

i 'marched silently 

across the yards ai d through the corridors, 
where they draw' their rations, and so *o 
their cells. Each man .doses his door behind 
him and a keeper follows, locking it with a 
key. When u company of fifty has entered 
there is a ha’rsh dang of n etal and the long 
bar that falls across the tops of the cell 
dcors has been thrown into place. With this 
tar, nearly 800 feet long,; across the doors, no 
man could leave bis oell even were It un¬ 
locked. To let in t r.e belated'clerk or run¬ 
ner the bar must be lifted, but nobody can 
then escape, as each cell is locked with a key. 
The 1,200 ceils are locked in eight minutes. 

This shutting of a human being into a dark, 
harrow hole in a stone wall was not origi¬ 
nally accounted as punishment at all. The 
poor devil might be kep' from the light anl 
air and happiness-for months and years while 
waiting the pleasure of a king.or a nobleman, 
or the willingness of lawyers or judges to 
try him, arid b ! s punishment, which came 
later, took the form of death by beheading 
or hanging ^ r shooting or burning. Now, be¬ 
hold, the mere prerogative of those who 
wielded the law is bec une punishment itself, 
and God knows it is usually punishment 
enough. Rebellious and dangerous fellows 
are not In these days exposed to the ignominy 
and suffering of castigation. 

The Legislature of New York has. wisely 
or otherwisely, aboli:>hed all forms of capital 
punmhment in the prisons of the state. The 
dark cell with a bread and water diet Is now 
the only punishment for the refractory. There 
was once In vogue a method that was said 
to have worked refoims in every instance. 
Inside of thirty seconds, and it did not carry 
with it any exposure or shame. It consisted 
in putting handcuffs on the culprit and hang¬ 
ing him by these gyves to an upward sliding 
hook. The strain on his arms from this was 
more than he could stand and he always 
promised to be good. A curious relic in the 
head keeper’s office is an iron cage worn over 
the head as a punishment for talking or 
turning ihe head or failing to keep step. 
Spankiog was in vogue some years ago, and, 
that too, was efficacious, but the victim left the 
whipping post roaring vengeance and threat¬ 
ening sudden death on all who vere concerned 
In the performance. Yet there are a few 
men so callous that nothing less than physical 
pain seems to have any effect on them, and 


AT SING SING. 


there is no doubt that in our cities hoodlum- 
ism could be broken up ir a day by vigorous 
applications of the public lash, iu lack of the 
domestic slipper. 

EIGHT-HOUR SYSTEM work ZZ sZ 

Sing are only 
eight in the day, 
but the turn-out whistle blows at half past 6. 
Breakfast is at 6:45; work begins at 7:30 and 
lasts till 11:30; dinner is ready at noon and 
over at half past 12; work is then resumed 
till 4:30. The homeward march begins at 
4:45 and all exoept a few' clerks are in and 
locked up at 5:30. There is a double count 
after locking, each man standing at his 
door till the keepers have gone by. Of keep¬ 
ers and guards there are ninety, their work 
being arranged in shifts, the night men go¬ 
ing on at 5:30 P.-M. and remaining on duty 
till 6:30 next riiorning, when the day men 
take their places. In twelve glass windowed 
turrets on the walls stand twelve guards 
with loaded trifles in their hands, ready to 
shoot at a riiomeut’s notice. The corridor 
guards at night do not carry guns, but re¬ 
volvers, and the keepers who go among the 
men at their work grasp thick canes. The 
guards on the walls are dismissed as soon 
as the prisoners are in for the night. 

Of all days of the w r eek, Sundays and holi¬ 
days are most dreaded, for then the con¬ 
victs are locked into their cells, and when 
a holiday directly follows a Sunday it means 
that a man will be locked in without work or 
exercise for more than sixty hours, save for 
such liberty as he has in chapel. Sunday 
services are fixed for 8:30 A. >1. and the lock¬ 
ing in is at 11, when the men take their din¬ 
ners vyith them. The first two or three 
nights .of incarceration are usually the worst 
for a prisoner. He is restless and nervous, 
and usually asks for tobacco. Every prison¬ 
er has a moderate allowance of the weed, 
which he can smoke or give to a cell mate 
as he pleases, for seventy-five of these 
wretched little crevices are double-bedded. 
The prisoner has a state ration of two papers 
of tobacco a week, which he may smoke in 
a pipe. The poisonous cigarette is not per¬ 
mitted, because of its suffocating stink, and 
cigars are not allowed because that would 
be to Introduce class distinctions. Some fel¬ 
low might receive from a friend outside a 
real Havana that would make of him a sub¬ 
ject of such envy that he would be drubbed 
at the first opportunity. 

ONCE IN TWO MONTHS. friends may 

send p i e. 
R e 1 a lives 
and friends may visit Sing Sing but once in 
two months, and must then come in a body, 
so that two months will elapse before the 
prisoner can see any one from the outside 
world again. Beside food these friends may 
carry to him underclothes, stockings, and 
handkerchiefs, but there can be no substi¬ 
tute for the uniform, the coarse striped shirt, 
or the heavy :shoes. Once in a month the 


MUCH GOOD. 


VISITORS ALLOWED 


convict is allowed to write to his people, 
though they may write to him every day, if 
they like. All letters and parcels are exam¬ 


ined before giving them to the prisoner. 
People who visit him are not usually 
searched, while the prisoner is inspected be¬ 
fore he goes to meet them. This reversal 
of the usual custom was caused by the kill¬ 
ing of his wife by a man in this prison. She 
I had gone to see him, and he stabbed her 
! with a knife that he had been using to pare 
potatoes with and had concealed in his 
| jacket. Jealousy was the supposed motiv* 
for the crime. 

In his cell the prisoner is alone with his 
thoughts, and society is requiring to know 
whether those thoughts are revengeful or do¬ 
lorous or comforting. If they are revenge¬ 
ful and he is embittered against his fellows, 
then the object of punishment Is not 
achieved. It Is doubtful of the awakenings 
used with such success in the reformatories 
of half the states in the union might not be 
attempted here, most of the inmates being 
young and beginners in wrong doing. The 
effect of lectures and even of occasional 
amusements, to stir inlo activity minds that 
are dull and brooding, would be worth ex¬ 
periment. 

..The school does un- 
oOHUUL DU ho questioned good and in 
the so-called art school, 
where the men learn to 
carve, the best artist is a negro—the con¬ 
templation of forms of grace and beauty can¬ 
not but (affect for the better the thoughts of 
the workers. Music might have a good effect 
likewise, as it does everywhere, but there i3 
none of it in the prison, except that a few 
men are allowed to own and to play softly 
on violins, banjos or guitars. Work in gar¬ 
dens, too, would be for the mental and pos¬ 
sibly for the moral, health of many, but there 
is small occasion for such work, as the farm 
of six acres is made to yield little except 
vegetables for the officers' tables. 

It is a sad, strange procession, that of the 
evil regiment, marching to its barracks; weak 
faces there, vicious faces, faces scarred with 
knives and bullets, faces scarred and blotched 
by foul diseases, foxy faces, mean faces, faces 
that slink, crafty, hypocritical faces; yet 
withal, good faces, kind faces, faces marked 
more by sorrow than by sin, faces that reveal 
gentleness. Not many are sullen; most are 
dull. The faces of the negroes are the hap¬ 
piest of all. There is little complaint. As 
one of the men says r “Oh, we are treated all 
right. It’s a man’s own fault if he isn’t. Hs 
can make this place pleasant or uncomfortable 
for himself, as he pleases.” This indicates 
the possibility of maintaining a philosophic 
frame of mind amid the most unpromising 
surroundings. It has been remarked that 
stone walls do not a prison make, nor Iron 
bats a cage; minds innocent and quiet take 
that for a hermitage. The innocent and quiet 
mind is not the average mind in Sing Sing, 
it is feared, yet none can watch the passage 
of the company from or to its cells who does 
not feel that here is a neglected duty; that 
the society which is so apt in punlshmnt is 
not so apt in prvention; and that, no mat¬ 
ter how forbidding the .mark, every counte¬ 
nance among these hundreds is the face c t 
a brother; the sign of an immortal soul. 



















The Indeterminate Sentence. 



ITH the establishment 
of the New York 
State Reformatory 
at Elmira, a step was 
taken in the march 
of • progress that 
there is no retrac¬ 
ing. It beat down 
the hindering weeds 
of prejudice and 
fogyism, and made 


more plain the way for what must follow. 


Until that time we, in this.progressive coun¬ 
try, had given little thought to the problems 
of the criminal, and we still give far too lit¬ 
tle for our own profit and safety. Until that 
time the criminal was, in our view, an out¬ 
law, as he still is, and without hope or 
chance of change, as he is not. 

It is to Zenas R. Brockway that the offen¬ 
der owes a new hope and brighter chances. 
This man’s life of four score has been de¬ 
voted to the study of the criminal and man¬ 
agement of prisons. He urged the adoption 
of the indeterminate sentence for young of¬ 
fenders, , whereby a superintendent assuming 
that he is a man of intelligence and qualified 
to judge, might shorten a convict’s punish¬ 
ment and restore him to a useful and honor¬ 
able life, when he saw that in the character 
and behavior of any one of his charges 
which would warrant his release. This he 
can do by suggestions to the board of man¬ 
agers. Criminals are alike in the eyes of 
the law. Courts deal only with results, 
never with causes. The boy who, in a fit 
of passion, or when tempted by hunger, or 
when under the influence of evil associates, 
lapses into crime, though for the one time 
in his life, is to be dealt with as harshly as 
the professional thief, the conscienceless 
brigand. 

We are beginning to see the mental ab¬ 
surdity and moral wickedness of this. It is a 
matter into which sentiment does not enter— 
merely plain sense—and the Elmira Reform¬ 
atory is a monument to justice, rather than 

concession to pity or any soft and unwar¬ 
ranted emotions aroused by contemplation of 
the pains of those who have made others suf¬ 
fer. It is a prison, but it is also a school. 
It is the end of a wrong career, and begin¬ 
ning of a right one. Its purpose is to repress 
what should be repressed, and but to lift al! 
that makes one worthy to associate with his 
kind. 


REFORMATORY PLAN 
ALWAYS WORKS WELL 


And it is 
s i g n i fi - 
cant that in 
no instance 
has any state gone back to the old Mosaic 
or vindictive law when the spirit of Christi¬ 
anity has appeared among its people and has 
declared itself in legislation or in practices 
that give to the criminal the chance that is 
his warrant by virtue of his earlier lack of 
chances. Wherever the reformatory method 
has been installed it has stayed, and instead 
of growing narrower it is ever widening. It 
is a trite old proverb that vinegar never 
catches flies, hut molasses does, and to the 


wonder of the world it has been proved with¬ 
in the century that gentle methods encourage 
gentle conduct, while harshness brings out 
an answer of all the harshness that is in the 
nature of the recipient. 

Elmira is a pleasant little city of thirty odd 
thousand, high, cool, and inclosed by hills 
of heavy outline that border the Chemung 
valley and are whitened with snow as late 
as April. The reformatory, with its apper¬ 
taining shops and the farm that supplies 
much of food to it, stands on a slope and 
enjoys a view. Many of its occupants are in 
rooms that do not command much of this 
view, and even in the yards their outlook is 
limited, for the usual high wall is built 
about the structure and the usual guards 
with, guns walk along its top and watch 
from their platforms and conning towers. 
A long, fair lawn spreads down before the 
building and gives dignity to that structure 
—an architectural performance that has a 
certain old fashioned pomp, but is over orna¬ 
mented on the outside with gables and tur¬ 
rets and conical roofs. Simplicity is best be¬ 
coming to prisons and nothing better for the 
purpose was ever devised as to > external 
architecture than the mediaeval castle, which 
has fitness, since the ancient donjons were 
the prisons of their time. 

The main building of the reformatory is a 
long construction from which three wings 
are given out to the rearward, and the cir¬ 
cuit of the whole cell block, as made by 
watchmen on bicycles, is half a mile. - There 
is an improvement on some of the older 
institutions of the kind in the reduction of 
the cell tiers to four, and wherever ground 
is cheap and plenty there is no reason why 
there should be even so many as this. Wood 
was used in the stairs and galleries, but the 
place is reasonably ' safe and has appliances 
for dealing with fire. The shops are stronger 
and better built than those of Sing Sing, 
and there is a drill hall large enough for the 
maneuvers of a regiment. The cells are 
fairly commodious, but they are insufficient 
in number, and it has, therefore, been neces¬ 
sary to double up the inmates—a proceeding 
that is objectionable and unwise when it 
can be avoided, and which results in the 
practice of some vice and the teaching pos¬ 
sibly of more. Perverts, especially those 
who affect an effeminate manner, used to be 
sent elsewhere as soon as possible, to finish 
their terms in Sing Sing or Auburn; but 
they are now kept in separate cells and are 
put through severe drill. 


_ _ _ _ The inmate—he is 

GOOD CONDUCT, never called a pris- 

EARLY RELEASE. ° ner ° r a convict ~ 

has hope of an early 
release so long as he behaves himself. He 
is sent to Elmira for the very purpose of se¬ 
curing it, if he proves worthy. A'determi¬ 
nate sentence imposes, we will say, a term 
of five years for a certain sort of stealing. 
If the thief is young he can be sent to the 
reformatory, and there held for the whole 
five years, should he be stubborn, dis¬ 
obedient and have no wish' to progress;, 
but if he is an average inmate he may 
leave in a year. Pome have left in a 


year and a half, and the average time for 
each man is but two and a half years. It is 
commonly supposed that the institution is for 
boys alone, but such is not the case. It is 
for offenders between the ages of 16 and 30, 
but if one were to be sent, say at the latter 
age, on a charge that carried w r ith it a maxi¬ 
mum penalty of ten years, he could be de¬ 
tained there till he was 40. There are few 
instances of this sort, and the average age 
is 22. For the very young offenders there 
are other institutions, like the State Indus¬ 
trial Schools at Randall’s Island, New York 
City, and Rochester. 

The parole system which is exemplified 
at Elmira is similar to the ticket of leave, 
by which England softened the asperities of 
exile to her colonial prisons. Any convict 
proving himself worthy of confidence and ex¬ 
hibiting a due repentance might receive one 
of those warrants which would entitle him to 
return to England and remain there, under 
the eye of the police, to be sure, so long as 
he continued to be honest, sober and indus¬ 
trious, but which could be canceled at any 
moment if he did not fulfill the hopes of his 
former keepers. 

In Elmira the lad who is sent there from 
New York—nine-tenths of all inmates are 
from the cities, with New York far in the 
lead—is questioned and examined by the su¬ 
perintendent to determine his physical con¬ 
dition, mental and moral status and possi¬ 
bilities, and in due time he is put into a 
class, where he must learn the things that 
he has commonly avoided learning at the 
public school. He is likewise sent to a 
trade school to learn to make shoes or paint 
signs or do some one of many things. Also 
he is put into the awkward squad and de¬ 
livered into the hands of a drill sergeant 
with instructions to convert him into a 


soldier, or as near like one as possible. 


LIBERTY GIVEN 
BY DEGREES. 


After he has been 
subjected to these 
lifting and benignant 
influences for a sea¬ 


son he is put to the test. He is released 
on parole, work being invariably found 
for him in advance, the agreement be¬ 
ing to report at the beginning of every 
month his whereabouts, his occupations, and 
his behavior. Usually this report is sub¬ 
stantiated by an employe or guardian, 
and usually it is satisfactory. If he omits 
to report, or attempts to run away to some 
other state, the detectives are after him, 
and he is back at the reformatory wdth a 
foolish countenance and self-reproaches in 
! his hea^t. 

During the last school year 1,500 of the 
young fellows who would elsewise have been 
j drifting about the Bowery and other such 
| resorts, were equipped with better under- 
I standings and taught to use their hands. The 
| trades here are barbering, bookbinding, 
brass-smithing, brick-laying, cabinet mak¬ 
ing, carpentry, cloth cutting, dynamo tend¬ 
ing, frescoing, hardwood finishing, horse¬ 
shoeing, house painting, iron forging, machin¬ 
ist, machine wood working, molding, music, 
paint mi'inc. plastering olumbine p-intf-—, 























PRISONS OF THE NATION AND THEIR INMATES. 29 







STONE. CUTTING CLA5 


PRINTING, CLASS 



■Hi 


W§rr//. 




MACHINISTS CLASS 


CARPENTER CLASS 


LATEST PHOTOGRAPH OF NEW YORK 
STATE RJCFORMATOR.Y AT ELMIRA (fftoNT vitv0 

' e'« O o o c 6 » f “ t » 4<irog»fe»o»««o«6*o<>ooaoO»» c 


Crn€sT 


, 




























































































30 


PRISONS OF THE NATION AND THEIR INMATES. 


ahoemakiug, sign painting, steam fitting, 
stenography and type writing, stone cutting, 
tailoring, telegraphy, tinsuiithing and up¬ 
holstering. It pacifies the labor unions to 
know that all the work ot' the reformatory, 
competent as some of it is, is a dead waste 
except in so far as the immediate needs of 
the institution are concerned, since none of 
it is sold, and it is all destroyed as soon as 
done, that it may be done over again, for 
practice sake. The brick walls, for exam¬ 
ple, are not dry before they are pulled 
down, and the brick is fairly worn out by 
handling. There were formerly classes in 
cooking, pattern making and photo engraving. 

Beside fitting the criminal to go back into 
the world and take care of himself, the work 
in the trade schools and the shops is of value 
as a discipline. The busy man has less time 
than the other sort of man for evil thoughts 
and evil actions; he has a better grasp on 
himself in time of need; he has a better 
physique and a quicker mind than the idler; 
he rises to emergencies when it is necessary 
to affect others by direction or example, and 
the military instruction is also in line with 
this work, inasmuch as it is an aid to habits 
of order and neatness, of prompt obedience 
and attention, and it serves a purpose also 
in toughening the muscles and lightening the 
steps of the men. Many of the inmates do not 
like the drill. They have not been used to 
taking orders, and they are not in the habit 
of thinking quickly, so that they may spend 
a long time In the awkward squad; yet they 
make a good appearance when on parade, 
with their dummy guns and their band roar¬ 
ing down the drill court. The military of¬ 
ficers are guards, excepting the lieutenants, 
who are also monitors and are chosen from 


days before they attempt it. Among the 
newer comers mental as well as physical 
atrophy is common, and, as might be ex¬ 
pected, some are not greatly removed from 
a state of idiocy. The treatment of unfor¬ 
tunates of that class is almost like the treat¬ 
ment of infants. They are built up material¬ 
ly, as they will presently be built up moral¬ 
ly and mentally, and a constant effort will 
be made to stir aspirations and emotions that 
iu their dull lives they have never experi¬ 
enced. About 60 per cent, of the men are 
illiterate on their arrival. As the school di¬ 
rector says: 

“They have no interest in any subjects ex¬ 
cept those related to the mere physical side 
of existence. They have no intelligent in¬ 
terest in what is going on in the world about 
them. Their stock of ideas is exceedingly 
small. Their imagination is limited. They 
have never formed the habit of persistent 
work. They have followed the line of least 
resistance, without regard to law or order 
in themselves or toward the community.” 

Some of the men are so undeveloped that 
they are unfit for even the primary classes 
and are put into a sort of kindergarten, while 
the many foreigners are grouped by them¬ 
selves until they have learned to speak 
English. 

The lessons are such as are taught in the 
common schools, and are supplemented by 
lectures and debates and the use of papers 
and books from the well picked library of 
3,000 volumes. The lowest and largest di¬ 
vision studies arithmetic and language and 
on Sunday it has elementary instruction in 
American history and biography. The sec¬ 
ond division has arithmetic and language also, 
and on Sunday meets for instruction in nat¬ 



the best behaved inmates, and the claim is 
made that 75 per cent, of the company could 
be brought up to the West Point standard 
of drill under favorable circumstances of 
isolation and special instruction. 

Beside the drill, 

GYMNASIUM WORK there is gymnasi- 

IS COMPULSORY. Z 

on most, albeit some of the lads are .so 
feeble when they arrive that they are put 
pn extra diet and allowed to rest for some 


ural history or some subject suggested by- 
nature. The upper class, the ethics division, 
consisting of about 300 men, adds to the 
commoner branches history and literature. 

The lectures were in the past given hy¬ 
men of all professions* and were wide in the 
range of subject, but in lack of special ap¬ 
propriations for the' purpose they are now 
given principally by officers of the institu¬ 
tion. Maps, drawings and stereopticon slides 
are used for illustrative purposes, and the 
scholar is encouraged to read up on the sub¬ 
jects and to ask questions pertaining to 


them. He is examined afterward to lest bis 
memory and understanding, and In these 
tests he usually shows an ever-increasing 
interest and ability to remember and reason. 
The nature studies touch the imagination, 
especially when they deal with elemental 
forces and astronomy, and when the imagina¬ 
tion wakes so also do seriousness, revor- 
ence and religious feeling. 


CTUIf'AI PI AQQ Oddest of the school 
ulnlUAL uLAoO divisions is the ethi- 

0DDEST OF ALL cal class. Mind, this 

is not to be cqn- 
founded with religious teaching. There 
are Protestant, Catholic and Hebrew 
services at stated intervals, but attend¬ 
ance is not compulsory on- any of them. 
In the ethical class, which meets on Sunday, 
the effort of the leader is to so shape the 
debates and discussions that the men will 
find themselves arguing for better behavior 
and persuading one another against immor¬ 
ality and giving the reasons for their new 
attitude. One of the brightest debaters at 
one of the sessions which I attended was a 
little Hebrew who had been sent to the re¬ 
formatory for forgery. To hear him talk on 
egoism and altruism, on self-sacrifice and 
social duties, was absolutely refreshing. And 
there was never a doubt that he meant it. 
Another case was not so promising. The 
professor in charge called an intelligent 
looking chap to his feet, and, following the 
line of argument, which was that we are led 
to do right not merely from the movings of 
conscience but because right is public policy 
and the only possible basis for society, he 
said; 


“Now, Smith, I hear good reports of you. 
They tell me you are getting on well in 
your studies, that you have learned your 
trade, you have been promoted in your com¬ 
pany. Now this means that you are work¬ 
ing hard. Why?" 

And Smith did not say that It was because 
his conscience prodded him, or that he want¬ 
ed to be altruistic. He merely remarked, 
“ ’Cause I want to get out.” 

On admission the young man is put- into a 
suit of rusty black, and sent to the trade 
school and the school of letters. In six 
months, if he has shown progress, he U ad¬ 
vanced from the black to the blue class, 
which is distinguished by a dress of gray 
blue, and which enjoys certain privileges, 
such as that of talking during meals, and 
obtaining a wider variety in his ration. If, 
however, he does not advance, is sulky or 
obstreperous, and requires discipline, b e is 
degraded into the red class, where he may 
think that he looks prettier, on account of 
his crimson breeches and jacket, but w-here 
he certainly can not feel prettier. After six 
months In the blue class he is eligible for 
parole, and after six months on parole he is 
eligible to release. 

There Is a theoretical w-age as payment for 
work in the whops or on the 300 acre farm, 
and against this sum is entered all the pris¬ 
oner’s expenses for clothes, food, medicine 
ana so on, but unless he is an ill behaved 
lad he can harcfiy help a little balance creep¬ 
ing up in his favor, and when he leaves the 
institution this balance is given to him. It 
will average $10 and has been as much as 
$30. With this he can support himself for 
a few days, at least until he has found em¬ 
ployment or has been received by his friends. 
Most of the men return to the cities, whence 
nine-tenths of them came, and most of them 
live honestly ever after, although the trades 
unions about New York make ft as hard as 


possible for them to find work, or keep it. 































PRISONS OF THE NATION AND THEIR INMATES. 


31 


SYSTEM REFORMS 

GREAT MAJORITY. ter conduct of re - 

formatory grad¬ 
uates. Some allege that it is the sly ones 
who are soonest, released. There is no kind 
of doubt that in a great majority of eases 
they leave the place better than they en¬ 
tered it and become worthy citizens. Yet it 
may be the luck of some person to see the 
failures. One man who wanted to be good 
and who has employed at various times the 
former inmates of one of the largest reform¬ 
atories in the country, said that he had 
labored with eight of them and they all 
“went back on him.” 

As against this experience it is -well to cite 
another. A certain inmate of the Elmira 
reformatory obtained an early parole and re¬ 
lease, went into business in one of the cities 
of the middle states, and prospered. He 
never lapsed, but was an honest citizen to 
the end of his days—maybe to the end of yes¬ 
terday, for he is probably living. He was 
proposed for membership in the principal 
club of the town by the most influential 
member of it. As his history was well known 
there were threats of almost unanimous 
blackballing. But the influential member, 
whose money had a good deal to do w-ith 
the club’s existence, remarked, “Well, gen¬ 
tleman, you can elect him or drop me, as you 
please.” And the “prison bird,” as he had 
been called, was elected and has never done 
anything to forfeit his membership. 

The Elmira institution was much in the 
public eye a few years ago, because of the 
publicity given to the practice of paddling 
refractory inmates. Paddling is spanking 
with a piece of leather. One of the yellow 
Journals started an outcry, and published a 
series of alarming rumors, accompanied by 
pictures of glaring and furious men putting 
the prisoners to torture and death, and, as 
always, there was a loud wail of sympathy 
from those who knew nothing about the mat¬ 
ter. It. was declared that the knock-down- 
and-drag-out method was in constant prac¬ 
tice and the Legislature passed a law against 
corporal punishment in all the institutions of 
the state. The practice was not general in 
our institutions. It was seldom excessive 
In individual cases, and the power to check 
impudent and rebellious fellows who fear 
nothing but physical pain was an important 
one. Many prison officers to-day believe it 
would be well to restore it. 

Dr. Robertson, the successor of Mr. Brock¬ 
way, gives no floggings, but it is said that 
he once chained a refractory inmate to face 
the wall of his cell for twenty-eight days, 
ten hours a day—a worse punishment than 
spanking. 


WHEN SPANKING 
IS NEEDED. 


As an instance of 
what one may have 
to put up with when 
he is a prison su¬ 
perintendent, if he has no power to punish. 
It will suffice to tell of a famous burglar 
who served a term or two in Elmira. He 
was the son of a thief and his mother -was 
a shoplifter, so the best was not to be ex¬ 
pected of him. One evening, while he was 
at the end of a line of men descending the 


gallery stairs, he seized a lighted lamp and 
hurled it among his comrades. The burn¬ 
ing oil, flying in all directions, might have 
killed several of them and might also have 
set fire to the stairs and galleries, but by 
a miracle it did not. And the only reason 
for this act was that the fellow wanted ex¬ 
citement. or felt uelv. Isn t that a case for 


spanking? Wouldn't it be at home? How 
much more so, then, in an institution where 
wrong heads might be moved to imitate 
him! 

A Canadian convict, when assigned to a 
shop, said: “I’ve never worked a day in 
my life, and I'm damned it I'll do it here.” 
He was triced up ana flogged, and from that 
day he worked. 

One does not feel very amiably toward a 
person who has inflicted physical pain or 
injury on him. but if the purpose of the 
pain was correctional the victim may come 


pranos was a boy with curly hair and the 
face of an angel. A woman visitor was 
smitten to tears at the sight of him, and 
the pure, sweet quality of his voice. “Oh, 
what could have brought him here?” she 
asked. “It isn’t possible that he ever did 
anything wrong. Oh, Mister Blank, won’t 
you please ask that keeper what that boy ever 
did to bring him here.” And Mister Blank 
did it. And the keeper answered: “Little 
dam cuss, lie’s the worst case we’ve got here. 
I wish he’d die.” So the tears for the angel 
child were more or less wasted. 

There is a fair average of health, consider* 



in the later , years to look upon the matter 
in a forgiving or even a grateful spirit. 
One of the fellows who had been paddled at 
Elmira extended his hand to the superin¬ 
tendent, as he was about to leave, and 
said: “I thank you, Mr. Brockway, for what 
you have done for me—at both ends.” 

Another instance comes from another in¬ 
stitution. The superintendent was one day 
passing through the shoe shop attached to 
the prison, when a young Cuban, smarting 
under some vague sense of wronfe, caught 
up a shoe knife and made a stab at him. 
The outcry of another convict caused 
the man to turn in time to avoid 
the blow. He said never a word. He 
wrested the weapon from the young fel¬ 
low's hand, led him by the arm to a cor¬ 
ner, threw him across his knee, took a shoe 
sole from a table, and gave him a good, old 
fashioned, paternal dressing down. It was 
the first time in his life that the Cuban had 
ever had this experience and the last time 
it was needed. Years after the superintend¬ 
ent met this graduate, who shook him warm¬ 
ly by the hand and thanked him for the 
spanking. It had been a turning point in 
his career. He was now prosperous and re¬ 
spectable and the head of a big factory. 
Moral: Be spanked and own factories. 
Appearances do , not always tell the 
truth in reformatories. If they did 
one would say that the reformatory 
contained a large proportion of hard citizens; 
whereas it is known that most of them are 
first offenders, parented by the wrong people, 
more sinned against than sinning. Hard faces 
there are, but good ones, too, although ex¬ 
perience alone will disclose the inmate’s 
character. At. one of the public functions 
in a correctional institution there was mu¬ 
sic by a quartet of inmates. One of the so¬ 


ing, at Elmira. Cell room is more adequate 
than in some of the prisons, each apartment 
measuring 12 by 10 feet, and there are two 
ventilators in each. A slip of carpet is 
allowed to an occupant, but no rug, lest there 
should be splendors and jealousies. By the 
same token, the only ornaments permitted 
are family photographs. Precautions are taken 
to prevent the drinking of unboiled water, 

I and the sign, “Danger!” is hung over the 
j faucets in the shops. Doubling up is con¬ 
demned but practiced, for there are 1,360 
I men to put into 1,264 cells. The moral effect 
of the crowding is probably worse than the 
i physical, but until the rich and progressive 
| state of New York creates a modern, graded, 
j yet unified system of prisons, with more 
elasticity both of court practice and prison 
methods, there will be ground for complaint. 

Yet, there are not many hospital cases, 
thanks to ample feeding and wholesome ex¬ 
ercise and, employments. Consumption is 
most dreaded of all visitations. The crimi¬ 
nal is a defective, he is physically handi¬ 
capped, and he is three times as liable to 
consumption as are others. As a rule, he 
dies early, not merely because he has been 
dissipated and diseased and ill-nourished, but 
because he began life with so small a capital 
of vitality, his parents having little to give 
to him. The consumptives endanger the 
health of others in the institution, and are 
sometimes sent back to their families before 
it is time to parole them. All nationalities 
are represented, and I asked one of the keep¬ 
ers which one predominated. He looked at 
me thoughtfully, as if wondering whether it 
were safe to impart a secret, and he said: 
“About 48 per cent, of them are that kind.” 
Now% what did he mean by that? 

Considering that 27 per cent, of all the 
youth who have been sent to Elmira are said 
to have been absolutely without moral sense 
—moral idiots, in fact—the magnitude of the 
task which has been undertaken may be 
imagined. But in the excellence of the re¬ 
sults, Elmira has more than justified Itself. 
It has set an example that the world is pre¬ 
paring to follow. 






























- » » t . I 

The Open Syste 


PRISON without 
bolts or bars. This 
is the California re¬ 
formatory. It is not 
called a prison, nor 
does it look like 
one, nor are the in¬ 
mates ever referred 
to as prisoners. They 
are simply students 
in the state school. 
This reformatory is 
at Whittier, a pleas¬ 
ant village founded 
by Quakers, about fifteen miles from Los 
Angeles. It is beautifully surrounded by 
gardens and orchards, and the magnificent 
coast range, its peaks Whitened with sn'ow'in 


there is a spark of the divine in every man, 
if only it can be reached. His idea was to in¬ 
culcate a sense of responsibility and a proper 
ambition among those boys and girls who, in 
lack of proper home training, are a constant 
menace against the order and security of so¬ 
ciety. There are no models for the Whittier 
sehool. The only institution that might sug¬ 
gest it is the prison in Lenoglava, Hungary. 
Here the prisoners are graded in three 
classes. The first of their term they serve in 
cells, like those in Sing Sing. In the next 
class they work together in shops. On attain¬ 
ing the third grade they leave the prison and 
live in their own cottages, outside the walls, 
where they have no guards other than the su¬ 
perintendents of the. farms. There was no re¬ 
formatory in California before the establish- 




winter, wails the eastern horizon. The Whit¬ 
tier school iL .es from 189L Vr. Walter Lind- 
|ey, a physician from Brooklyn, X. Y., who 
bad given up a good piactiee to take its 
charge, was its first superintendent. He had 
made a study of Eastern prisons and reform¬ 
atories, but to him they were partial failures. 
Dr. Lindley has a heart as big as his adopted 
state. He believes with Victor Hugo that 


ment of Whittier, but another on the same 
order has since been built at lone. 

A I iinoT AAl Children are taken at 
ALMOST AN the Whittier school from 

IDEAL PRISON. 

are 21. . There are no rules of the usual sort 
common in penal institutions and the meth¬ 
ods are elastic. The plan is to treat the child 


individually: to free him as much as possi¬ 
ble from vicious surroundings and criminal 
suggestions. Students of prisons declare 
that this is the closest approach to the ideal 
that has so far been reached. It is certain¬ 
ly better than anything of'the kind which has 
been elsewhere attempted in the world. In 
I the oiler states the directors and keepers of 
prisons are an ineffective, ill paid, political 
lot. The Whittier establishment is on an¬ 
other basis It was believed that to make 
first class citizens out of warped material one 
must have first class directors and teachers. 
Colleges pay large salaries to teachers of 
boys who are i.ominally bright and good, yet 
there is a more urgent need of skilled direc¬ 
tion for the mentally stunted and morally 
unfortunate. 

The key note of success is occupation, con¬ 
stant occupation, mental and physical. Every 
lad acquires a common school education, has 
a military training and learns a trade. There 
is no question that thousands of these boys 
return to the^world as well qualified to earn 
an honest livelihood as are the children of 
the well to do. There were over 100 grad¬ 
uates from this school in the army and navy 
in the Philippines alone at the time of ;he 
American occupation. There are no more 
walls or other protections than in any other 
school or college, no guard is seen with a gun, 
there are no chains or gratings or any sug¬ 
gestions of a prison. The inmates are sent 
to Whittier until of age. but they may be 
paroled or discharged at any'time, even in 
three weeks. There is an average of 300 
boys and 50 girls here at a time and the at¬ 
tempts at escape are hut four or five a year. 
An exception to this record must' be noted 
during a political regime which followed Dr. 
Lindley’s retirement, for that.season saw a 
lapse into general lawlessness and rebellion. 
Political control endured for only two months 
but the evil effects of it lasted for sjj? months 
afterward. Intelligent men were then restor¬ 
ed to their places and'the barbarians went 
out. Last year only five attempts at escape 
were made and all .were unsuccessful. Two 
cadets who were working for the superin¬ 
tendent, drawing thereby a little salary, and 
who by good conduct had earned the right 
to go at any time, ran away one midnight 
while on guard, hut they wrote a letter of 
apology shortly after, expressing their regret 
that they had not made a formal retirement. 
Smart boys they were, too, but, then, smart 
boys sometimes run away from the best of 
homes. 






























PRISONS OF THE NATION AND THEIR INMATES. 


33 


DOESN’T BELIEVE 
IN “INCORRIGIBLES 


On arrival a 
boj* is washed, 
jf dressed and 
1 put into the 


company of trusties, who, it is be¬ 
lieved, will have a good influence on 
him. According to his moral and mental 
condition, he is assigned to one of seven 
companies. If he amounts to anything he 
will quickly show an ambition to move for¬ 
ward into a better one. A boy is not to be 
associated with those worse than himself, 
and at the same time, it is necessary to pro¬ 
tect the well disposed boys, so far as pos¬ 
sible. Says Dr. Lindley: “I don’t believe any 
of the boys is incorrigible. We get an idiot, 
now and then, but we send him elsewhere.” 

Some of the most 'unpromising prisoners 
become the best, and the reverse may also 
'*e said. The worst come from San Francis- 
tfo. The worst always come from cities. 
Only 25 per cent, of these boys are from 
the country. Many of the hardest looking 
pupils develop the greatest kindness and 
gentleness of manner, and theories of de¬ 
scent are sometimes put to a severe test. 
One veritable cherub, a boy of striking 
beauty and excellent disposition, is the son 
of a convict and an opium eating street 
drab. When Mrs. Lindley died, one boy 
wrote to the doctor: “She taught me about 
.flowers. I know what ones she loved. Please 
let me care for her grave while I am here.” 

Physical restraints are seldom necessary. 
There are watehmen in the dormitories, but 
they guard against fire and misconduct, 
rather than against escape. When a boy 
runs away and is caught his credits are taken 
away and he starts all over again. Boys 
who are rebellious or who endanger the dis¬ 
cipline of the school may be locked up on 
bread and water for two or three days, but 
this is rarely done. The commoner punish¬ 
ment is to deprive him of certain privileges, 
or to make him walk a beat without speak¬ 
ing to any one. During the entire year it 
may be necessary to whip about twenty-five 
of the boys. For months at a time, however, 
no such punishment is administered. The 
whipping must be done in presence of the 
superintendent, and eight or ten blows are 
enough. The girls are never whipped. They 
a:e locked up, or put on the guard line, 
when refractory. 


CARE TO AVOID 
CONTAMINATION 


Everything possible 
Us done to keep the 
inmates from con¬ 
tamination. Tramps 
are never allowed to come near Whittier. 
These men are perverts of the worst type, and 
not a few of the boys reach Whittier because 
at some time they have fallen under their in¬ 
fluence. It is an offense punishable by im¬ 
prisonment for any one to attempt to get an 
Inmate away or to smuggle liquor or tobaceo 
into the institution. Many of the boys and 
a few of ihe girls are cigarette fiends. The 
officers are generally able to tell when the 
boys have succeeded in obtaining tobacco, for, 
as a result of smoking, they will show list- 
lessness and carelessness in their work. These 
children are not absolute illiterates; only 6 
per cent, have never attended school; but the 
greatest number of them have attended school 
for only five years. 


Evil homes and surroundings are the com¬ 
monest causes of the conduct and conditions 
which send the children to this place. Of 
pupils whose parents are separated, there are 
over 20 per cent.; of those whose parents are 
dead, 8 per cent.; of those who have lost 
One pa' -o nt, 20 ner cent.: of hnco who never 


knew that they had any parents, 8 per cent. 
These latter come chiefly from the orphan 
asylums. One of the boys has had five par¬ 
ents. Divorces and re-marriages, often 
without forms of law, are common in the 
society which they represent. Occasionally 
a good boy will be sent to this school by a 
step father or step mother, who wants to be 
rid of him. The parent or guardian can go 
before a Judge and swear that a child is in¬ 
corrigible, and he or she is then committed 
to this institution. About 40 per cent, of 


of their term on parole. A bond for $200 
must be given by the person who takes the 
child on parole, and he must agree to feed, 
clothe and pay him properly and report 
monthly. If through any change of fortune 
he becomes unable to support the child, the 
child may be returned to the institution, and 
if the boy is mistreated by any such guardian 
the officers of the school can go to his rescue. 
Boys and girls are committed only by judges 
of the Superior Court. 

As to the youth who leave the Institutions 



. 


^ COTTAGE "B " 
COMPANY OF SMALL E>OYf 


’• <’ 5 


the inmates areTrish,.or what is called Irish- 
American; -25 per cent., Mexicans; and of 
Americans there are 20-per-cent. The others 
are Italians, Indians, negroes and an oc¬ 
casional Swede. One is a Japanese. There 
are no Chinese. 


» __The treatment of boys 

ftOST BOYS AREand girls is dissimi¬ 


1EF0RMED. 


lar, for the boys show 
criminal tendencies 
id the girls do nbt. At the same time these 
rls are disposed toward a loose life. One 
oman trustee says that 95 per cent, of them 
-e reformed, but the officers of the institu- 
on say otherwise. It is the old story: when 
woman falls she does not often rise again, 
inety per cent, of the boys are paroled 
ad 75 per cent, of them do well afterward, 
f the girls, however, it is said by those in 
position to know, that fully half of them 
»turn to evil ways. Occasionally the gilds 
arry and live correct and happy lives, and 
ae of them lately married a cadet from the 
one institution. About 15 per cent, of the 
ays becoine professional criminals and uring 


This is an institution for suspended sen¬ 
tences, and a bad boy who proves to be un¬ 
manageable may be sent back to the judge 
for sentence. If, however, there is no defi¬ 
nite charge against him he cannot be sent, 
because in such an instance there is no of¬ 
fense for which to try him. The good boys 
are looked after and provided with work and 
homes. Though they can be held there until 
it-.;, r't f- 1 , they may spend the larger nart ‘ 


for places in families or factories there ar# 
various 1 reports, and the conditions vary in 
various states. One man, not a Californian, 
who is in- charge of a large shop, declares 
that he has no faith in boys who have at any 
time engaged in a criminal career. 

“I have hau them working for me at one 
time and another,” he said, “and they were 
all failures and frauds. I tried eight gradu¬ 
ates from a penitentiary in my place, and- 
they were all unsatisfactory. They loafed, 
and they■ lied, and-they forged checks, and 
they had to be 1 bounced. I’m a believer now 
in total depravity.” 

This, however, chances to be an exception¬ 
al experience. There are hundreds of ex¬ 
students of these institutions who have aban¬ 
doned devious ways and taken to straight 
ones, and have left a record of exemplary 
conduct. Every one desires in his heart to 
believe at least in the possibility of such a 
thing. The success of “Les Miserables” and 
“The Ticket of Leave Man” proves it. 

In its situation 

BUILDINGS ARE the Whittier 
NEEDLESSLY HIGH. " W'J. 

proved upon. The building itself, however, is 
old fashioned. It was eonslructed bv a man 
who believed that a certain amount of 
architectural display was necessary in any 
public building. With all outdoors to spread 
in, he piled up his walls to a height of four 
stories, thereby imposing on the little fel¬ 
lows the necessity of climbing a lot of need¬ 
less stairs. There are no cells, except two 
or three that are used only for refractory 




















CacS> 


34 


PRISONS OF THE NATION AND THEIR INMATES. 



TAILOR. 

SHOP 


CARPENTER. 

„ shop. 


pupils, all the youngsters being gathered into 
dormitories at night, where they are watched 
by a man who sits in a corner under a light 
and has the room under his eye, but who 
seldom has occasion to address the boys or 
to separate any one of them from his fellows 
for misdoing. 

These dormitories are large and airy and 
the halls are wide, but the height of the 
building needlessly adds to the peril from 
fire. One of the separate houses, in which 
were the dining rooms and certain other 
apartments, was burned a while ago, and the 
occupants of the place are put to some pres¬ 
ent inconvenience as a result of the lack of 
room. The engine rooms and shops are ad¬ 
mirably neat and well kept, and the fireman 
has a relatively easy task because the fuel 
is oil, which has been “struck” in and about 
Los Angeles. It needs but the turn of a 
screw to release a flow of oil under the boiler 
and there i3 a hot fire In an instant. 

The industries are such as a fairly bright 
boy should be able to prosecute with a little 
direction from the shop superintendent, and 
the boy goes into the world with a trade 
■which, if he chooses to follow it, will leave 
no excuse for mischievous living afterward. 
Sloyd, which was afterward introduced into 
the manual training schools of the state, 
was first, adopted here, although it is not 
continued at present, the lack of proper ap¬ 
propriations having hampered progress at 
Whittier. Good work is done in the tailor 
shop, the carpenter shop, the printery, the 
elioemaking department, laundry, black¬ 
smith’s shop, bakery, kitchen and on the 
farm of 160 acres, with its stables, its cow r s, 
horses and hens, and in the girls’ department 
sewing and housework are taught. 

The boys and girls are talked to—reasoned 
with—when they enter the school, and they 
Quickly come to an understanding that the 
place is the best for them, and acquiesce in 
the rules that may be framed for their con¬ 
duct. The appreciation of what is being done 
ler them is more instant than tn other re¬ 
formatories, it is said, and the behavior is 
better. The punishment cells are rarely used 
and, indeed, there are no fixed punishments, 
because it is realized that there are differ¬ 
ences in the degree of responsibility, A boy 
who has slept in his clothes and has been 
accustomed to imitate the example of his 
parents in spitting on the floor will not be 
so severely rebuked for dirty and disorderly 
habits as will the one who has been well 
trained at home and who knows better than 
to disregard the customs of civilized peo¬ 
ple, but who wants to make his new associ¬ 
ates believe that he Is “tough.” 


... 




it 


J LI&R.AR.Y, 
ftOY 5' DEPARTMENT 


• ** t 


V. 


CONDUCT IMPROVES 


The improving 
tendencies that 

W0NDR0USLY QUICK. lnhere * r ; such 

surroundings as 
we find in Whittier are often of wonderful 
promptness in their action. One day a sher¬ 
iff from one of the middle counties arrived 
at the school with a burly young offender, 
whom he had put in irons for safety’s sake, 
for the boy weighed 200 pounds and was 
capable of mischief. The sheriff kept a shot¬ 
gun ready to hand during the trip and he 
was amazed, on arriving at the school, to 
discover none of the usual measures for the 
prevention of escapes. He was in two minds 
whether he should leave his charge in an 
institution like that, and was in actual alarm 
for the safety of the school when the lad 
was freed from his Irons and sent to bed 
in one of the dormitories. Two months later, 
being in that part of the state, the sheriff 
called at Whittier to learn whether his for- 
j B:f prisoner had been committing any mur¬ 
ders or burglaries in the neighborhood. Great 
was his astonishment when his villain opened 
the door for him. He had become one of 
j the .trusted inmates and was behaving quite 
i as well as anybody. 

At another time an attempt was made by 
a yellow paper to disquiet the public by re¬ 
ports of horrors enacted in the school. There 
has never been any secret in Its conduct, 
and there was,(therefore, a very slight basis 
for sensations; yet a woman was sent there 
with instructions to become hysterical and 
make disturbing copy. The first scholar that 


she encountered was a fellow who had been 
consigned to Whittier because he had at¬ 
tempted murder. He was in an open field, 
without guaTd, without shackles or chains, 
and was trimming timber with a sharp adze. 
The article that she wrote was not sensa¬ 
tional. 

Whenever Frederick Warde plays in Los 
Angeles he gives a free performance for the 
pupils of the school at Whittier, the first 
being “Julius Caesar” in street dress. He was 
as heartily and wisely applauded as he would 
have been by any audience in California, 
and the pupils hold him in great liking. A 
while ago he was in a Texas town and re- 
eieved a call from a hearty looking young 
fellow who introduced himself by saying that 
he was in the “Julius Caesar” audience in 
1893. He was now the superintendent of a 
big electric lighting plant, and he invited 
Mr. Warde to take dinner with him and 
meet his wife. Under the old system of 
harsh Imprisonment he would probably have 
gone back into the world an outcast, with 
the doors to honest employment closed 
against him. 

As was said, the 
BOYS MAKE boys are organized 

GOOD SOLDIERS, ^Ta^T 

quired to drill every day, the smallest of the 
hoys being excused from long marches. For¬ 
merly guns were supplied, but these are not 
in use at present, hence the drill consists 
almost wholly of evolutions. The drill com¬ 
mander is an Army pan of malestbs aa. 
























































wwsons or Ttrr watton and tttetti inmates. 


35 



&U1LD1NQ AND 

q rounds f or 

Q IRES' SCHOOL, 


CHICKEN YARD 
qiRLS' 

DEPARTMENT. 


’SITTlNQ ROOM lN 1 

COMPANY "fy cotta ce. 
^ I R.L DEPARTMENT 






« 


pearance, and he as well as his lieutenants 
are arrayed like Army officers. The per¬ 
formance of the boys at review and dress 
parade in the evening is highly commenda¬ 
ble, and their band inflates itself with mar¬ 
tial pride as it goes crashing and roaring 
down the line, past the Stars and Stripes 
that are fluttering in the breeze. All minor 
officers of the companies are cadets, as they 
are called, and eligibility to these offices, as 
well as the trust and responsibility imposed 
on those who are promoted to them, are 
stimulants to good conduct and diligence. 
Every summer the whole command goes into 
camp at Santa Catalina Island, a beautiful re¬ 
sort, which is reached by steamer from Sau 
Pedro, the port of Los Angeles. There they 
spend three weeks in drill, but with plenty 
of time for bathing, boating, games, ath¬ 
letics, foot ball and music. And the young¬ 
sters, far from being restrained, are encour¬ 
aged in their sports, because it is found 
that when their vitality has due outlet they 
are in better health and spirits, more tract¬ 
able and make better progress in their stu¬ 
dies. It is especially desired that they shall 
play at the end of their day’s work, because 
they sleep better afterward. 

At the school itself provision is made for 
the frequent entertainment of the youngsters. 
They have a large and handsome theater, 
where dramatic and variety performances are 
given and they contribute to the programme 
themselves. An orchestra chosen from among 
the members of the band supplies music 


whenever these entertainments are given. 
Visitors who can or will address the under¬ 
standings of the cadets are usually asked to 
speak to them, but the officers hold in dread 
the very good people who seize the opportuni¬ 
ty to tell the boysj how bad they are and how 
much better they ought to be. One re¬ 
former began his talk with a winning smile 
and this introduction: 

“I will not say, as the speaker did who 
addressed the convicts in a Southern peni¬ 
tentiary, that I am glad to see so many of 
you here.” This sent the spirits of the 
whole company into its various boots. It was 
a suggestion that the cadets were not schol¬ 
ars as their teachers had tried to make them 
believe, but offenders serving a sentence. It 
was a shock to the self respect which it is 
desired to inculcate. 

The usual holidays are observed at Whit¬ 
tier, and the birthday of the poet, for w'hom 
the Quaker founders named the town, is al¬ 
ways fitly celebrated. 

Talking is forbidden 

INMATES ARE during study and 

work hours, as it is 
in schools that are 
not reformatory in character, but it is per¬ 
mitted in the playgrounds—imagine tag or 
base ball without talk—at meal times and 
in the evening. The well being of the in¬ 
mates is likewise advanced by a liberal and 
varied diet, and the large orchards that sur¬ 
round the school provide a plenty of fruit for 
the tables without cost. There is a special 


VERY WELL FED. 


bill of fare for each day and the dietary in¬ 
cludes bread, eggs, sausage, steak, stews, po¬ 
tatoes, sweet potatoes, mush, turnips, onions 
and other garden stuff, pie, cake, pudding, 
butter, oranges, lemons, milk and coffee, 
while on holidays there are turkey and roast 
pig. Despite the ravages of several hundred 
active appetites there is a surplus of fruit 
and garden sauce which is sold to the gro¬ 
cers. 

It is possible for an inmate to earn a little 
money—more than he or she would be apt 
to earn outside, in addition to board and 
lodging. The surplus is perhaps not more 
than 75 cents a week, but even this is an 
incentive to industry and the money can be 
put into a bank, either to gain interest or to 
withdraw for approved expenditures, as oc¬ 
casion may demand. One boy when paroled 
had over $30 to spend and several have had 
$10 and thereabout. There is an excel¬ 
lent library, and the pupils are en¬ 
couraged in a wise use of books. One of the 
cadets acts as assistant librarian and the 
doors of his department are open from 8 in 
the morning until 8 at night. The popular 
reading, however, is a monthly paper printed 
by the cadets themselves, and they are also 
contributors of some of its best contents. It 
is called “The Whittier,” and is a successful 
and esteemed publication. The compositions 
are at least as original as those submitted to 
the ordinary school paper. Here are a couple 
of notes from a late issue: 

“The Jellyfish has no teeth, but uses him¬ 
self as if he were a piece of-paper when he 
is very hungry, getting his food and then 
wrapping his body’close about it.” 

“One of our cadet officers recently made an 
involuntary trip dowmstairs, on his head. He 
made what might be called a howling success 
of it.” 

And a threatened device is described In 
this fashion: “And now they have Invent¬ 
ed a wireless telephone by which a message 
can be talked across the ocean. You just 
stick your transmitter into the water on this 
side and say your little piece, while the fel¬ 
low—in China for instance—with phone to 
his ear, one end of w'hieh is in the briny 
deep, listens to your gentle racket, and talks 
back. If any man had told me a hundred 
years ago that they would do such things, 
and say such things at this day and date, 
he’d had provocation to have hit me about 
seventy pounds right between the eyes, for I 
should have called him ‘another,’ sure. This 
last invention beats the legendary ‘philliloo 
bird’ all hollow.” 

Of course there is dullness among thej>u« 






















































36 


PRISONS OF THE NATION AND THEIR INMATES. 


pils. most of whom have had hut little 
schooling and almost no home training of the 
kind that is valuable'in forming character; 
75 per cent of them come from the city tene¬ 
ments, where there is a prevalence of wrong 
practices and wrong ideals; yet there is of¬ 
ten a surprising change when the minds be¬ 
gin to awaken under new stimuli and when 
undreamed horizons begin to open. Says Dr. 
Lindley: “Some of the boys were repellent 
when they came here. They were seemingly 
of a low type; they were dirty and neglected. 
It was astonishing to see the change in them 
after a few weeks of proper feeding and af¬ 
ter their minds had been awakened. I grew to 
love the little fellows.” 


EXAMPLE OF 
QUIET HEROISM. 

home conditions that t 


A while ago one of 
the boys went back 
into the world and 
was confronted by 
ould have discouraged 


even those who might be supposed to have 
a stronger resisting power than the gradu¬ 
ate of a public institution. Hie mother was 


a confirmed drunkard and there were two or 
three small sisters to care for. Unpracticed 
as he was in the ways of the world, he at 
once began the pursuit of the trade he had 
learned in Whittier, and was presently in a 
position to offer a home to his relatives. His 
mother promised to reform, but only two or 
three nights elapsed before he found her as 
usual, dead drunk in the hall. When last 
heard from he was still stoutly and cheerfully 
holding his own against discouragement and 
adversity, and with the help of his brothers 
had placed his sisters in a convent school 
where they would be free from the mother’s 
influence. Examples of quiet heroism like 
this are commoner in humble life than we 
know. Probably they are proportionally 
commoner than in finer society, for there is 
a lack of the sensitiveness that makes vice 
and wretchedness intolerable for other than 
ethical reasons. 

The Whittier school has, without question, 
begun a great reform. The day of punitive 


treatment is passing. The dawn of a day 
of justice has appeared. Not punishment, 
especially for one who sins in ignorance, but 
reform, is the duty of the state to itself and 
to the offender. Sharp measures will still 
be needful against those who waver between 
right and wrong, and those who have never 
felt the stir of a moral sense. The hood¬ 
lums, for instance, who vex the American 
cities, the Hooligans of London, the Larri¬ 
kins of Australia, need prompt discourage¬ 
ment, even if that discouragement takes the 
form of whipping; but prevention will save 
society from the passions and devices of 
those who seek to do evil against it, and 
more and better schools, a completer watch 
on the potentially vicious, and wiser labor 
laws will do much to abridge the improper 
liberties and tendencies of the criminal, 
while for such as are not yet criminal, but 
lack guidance and are weak or undeveloped 
there must be an establishment, the world 
over, of such institutions as the .Whittier 
school. 






The 



OST various of penal 
Institutions is the 
county jail, and it is, 
with possibly no ex¬ 
ception, the worst. 
As it is occupied by 
short term prisoners 
and by people await¬ 
ing trial, the rules 
regarding cleanliness 
and employment are 
seldom enforced, and 
the place is dirty, ill 
smelling, unhealthy and repugnant. In some 
of the states wise legislation has taken the 
prisons out of the hands of politicians and 
has appointed as wardens men of understand¬ 
ing, sympathy, honesty, sobriety and steady 
temper, but the jails are mostly held by 
sheriffs as places of emolument, by means of 
which they are enabled to repay themselves 
for the services rendered to their party in 
the past. 

In the prison and penitentiary the cells 
are kept clean, the prisoners are compelled 
to bathe before they occupy them, certain ra¬ 
tions are assured to them, and these ra¬ 
tions while coarse are nutritive and sufficient. 
In a jail, on the contrary, there are generally 
no arrangements for bathing; the cells and 
corridors are not kept clean, unless an oc¬ 
casional whitewashing is amends for the use 
of soap and mops and brooms and disinfec¬ 
tants; vermin lodge in the stone work and 
the wood; there is little or no discipline; 
and there is complaint of ill feeding. A 
sheriff usually receives a certain sum for the 
board of each prisoner. If he is an honest 
man or a man of heart, he expends the whole 
of this sum in the way intended. If he is 
the usual politician he saves money at the 
expense of the stomachs of his prisoners. 

Now, even allowing that the criminal is not 
to be treated with consideration, and that 
the place of his confinement is not to be made 
pleasant for him, the injustice of running a 
jail for personal profit is. obvious when it is 
remembered that the institution is not mere¬ 
ly for punishment of minor offenses, but as 
a place of detention for untried prisoners, 
many of whom prove to be innocent, and for 
other people who are wanted as witnesses. 
Law is responsible for some injustices and 
oppressions, but for none worse than the 
locking up of men neither charged, convicted 
nor • ~uspected of offense, but unfortunate 
enoucs to have seen the commission of a 



THE WORST. 


crime. In a noted murder case in New York 
the unhappy witnesses were kept behind the 
bars for years, while the assassin walked 
the streets, on bail. 

^,__ „ Untried prisoners 

WITNESSES FARE and witnesses de¬ 
serve the best, but 
they have the 
worst. That is, they usually do. for there 
are degrees of badness in jails, as in every¬ 
thing else. In the rural districts the jail is 
often no more than a caboose of logs with a 
single window and no furniture, and the per¬ 
son arrested is locked in while the sheriff 
or constable goes home and leaves him 
there for the night, exposed to danger of 
fire or freezing, without bed or bedding, 
without lamp or food. In the cities we have 
seen the beginning of a change. Humanity 
requires it. The day of the Old Bailey and 
Newgate is behind us. For there was a time, 
and it is not far gone, when law was slower 
than it is to-day, preposterous as the asser¬ 
tion seems, and when a debtor was thrown 
into company of the vilest creatures of the 
town, to wait till he paid his indebtedness, 
which, as he could earn nothing, was for 
life. As a partial solace his family was per¬ 
mitted to occupy quarters with him, and he 
saw r his children grow to manhood and 
w'omanhood among thieves and baw'ds, hear¬ 
ing daily talk that would shock even a man, 
accustomed to exhibitions of lewdness, 
cruelty and vulgarity, and surrounded by all 
the conditions that make for unrighteous¬ 
ness. 

While we pretend to civilization, that time 
will never come again, but ideal conditions 
have not yet been reached. The poor man 
fares hard, and the rich man less so, where 
in the eye of the law, all men should be 
alike. It is remembered that Boss Tweed, 
the most audacious thief knowm in the new 
w T orld till his successor came into power, 
was permitted to enjoy many of the solaces 
that stolen money had given to him before 
his arrest, and other big rascals have been 
permitted to have as much liberty, and even 
more. It is said, on good authority, that in 
the case of certain well-to-do offenders, they 
have been seen driving in the parks with jail 
wardens attired as footmen, when they were 
supposed to be expiating in tears their re¬ 
cent misdoings, and it is certain that they 
can live well in jail so long as their friends 
can trust them to repay what they will ad¬ 
vance for that benevolent object. 


WHAT’S THE REASON Most mysteri¬ 
ous of public 

FOR THIS MYSTERY? institutions is 

the jail for wit¬ 
nesses, or, as it is called in New York, the 
House of Detention. Wherever secrecy is 
used, especially under a Tammany adminis¬ 
tration, one suspects occasion for it, and in 
New York the secrecy is of the deepest. 
There is, consequently, something wrong in 
this prison. Sergeant Donovan, the warden, 
will give not a word of information; will not 
say how many prisoners are in his charge, 
how many cells there are, what the dietary 
is, how long the men remain there on an 
average, nor will he permit one to set foot 
beyond the office door. At police headquar¬ 
ters it was Mr. Murphy only who could grant 
a pass, but Mr. Murphy’s business hours re¬ 
quire one to lose a day to see Mr. Murphy. 
At the District Attorney's office Mr. Mc¬ 
Kenna said that no pass could be given un¬ 
less I had a father or son in the place and 
wanted to carry some clean shirts to him. 
He said he knew nothing of the place and 
did not know any one who did. It was a 
prison for poor people who could not furnish 
bail. Another official explained that I could 
not enter the prison because I might bribe 
the people there to give false witness. It 
is expressly to keep lawyers away from them 
that they were shut up in this medieval 
gloom and mystery. The place is not like 
the usual prison, in that it occupies an old 
dwelling house on Mulberry street, not far 
from police headquarters. It is a tall, nar¬ 
row, old-fashioned house, with winding stairs 
and a look of faded gentility, and the cell 
block is in the rear. Innocent men are kept 
here at the whim of the authorities, de¬ 
prived of liberty and association with their 
kind, and at the end of months of this in¬ 
justice, if the judge who has heard their 
testimony believes that they deserve com¬ 
pensation, he can order the payment of seme 
small matter, possibly $25 or $30. 

In most of our towns the witnesses who 
are held pending trial are committed to the 
common jails and herded in with thieves and 
drunkards and street walkers unless they 
have friends who will go bail for their ap¬ 
pearance when it is demanded. Possibly 
the jail is worse than the detention house, 
albeit access to it is generally easy, and 
there are more privileges. One of the legal 
functionaries of New York said that witiesses 
were deprived of their freedom "in order 

























38 









«:.'> •'.•> < -' 


KITCHEN 

IN THE 

T0MB5 


most unhealthful and unpleasant in New 
York. “Little Italy” begins almost at its 
doors, the “New Jerusalem,” with its horde 
of unwashed Poles and Russians is around 
the corner, and Chinatown with its gaming 
joints and opium, is within five minutes' 
walk. Five Points, near by, was at one time 
the wickedest place in America, but is now 
cican and dull and sober. Reforms outside 
of the Tombs have been more aggressive 
than those inside. 

The old wing of this house—city prison, 
is its official name—contains double ranks 
of cells, each four tiers high. The lower 
ones are as dark, at noon, as cellars, those 
above are a little better, and on the top tier 
one has light enough to read easily. Exact¬ 
ly the purpose of the narrow chinks of win¬ 
dows is not clear. Probably the architect 
imagined that if they were six inches wide 
instead of three somebody might evaporate 
through one of them. But nobody ever did. 
There have been escapes, yet not through 
the windows. Of these the most talked about 
at the time was that of the murderer, 
Sharkey, in the dress of his mistress, Maggie 
Jordan. She was allowed to enter-his ceil, 
a quick exchange of clothing was effected, 
and Sharkey, vailed and weeping, descended 
to the office, gave up the woman's pass and 
was permitted to go free. This was an old 


THE NEW T0MB5. 
part of the old build 

ING ON THE LEFT. 




that there might be no miscarriage of jus¬ 
tice.” As if the imprisonment of an inno¬ 
cent man w r ere not the grossest of all in¬ 
justices! 

TOM DC DCQT Best known of thft 

lUPflDO Duo I jails of this country 

KNOWN OF ALL. 5s the Tombs o£ Nl " v 

York. The structure 
that so long bore that name was fashioned 
like an Egyptian temple, with sloping outer 
w r alls and had a dark entrance betw’een im¬ 
posing columns. One of the lower courts 
held here was nearly as well known as the 
building, for the judge was one of the shows 
Of the town, being oftener drunk than sober, 


He w'as a political judge. The original 
Tombs is in process of reformation. Half 
of the building has been torn away, and a 
larger, lighter, airier, more modern struc¬ 
ture is to replace it, some time. The sooner 
the better, for the ancient structure is 
gloomy and crowded and ill arranged, albeit 
the majority of people who go there are 
not of a critical turn, for the neighborhood 
supplies most of the candidates, and the 
surroundings of the Tombs are, among the 


MAIN CORRIDOR & 
I N THE OLD TQMB5. 


dodge; at least, as old as the French revolu¬ 
tion. Now it is customary to keep sorrow¬ 
ing relatives on the outside of the cell 
doors, and they are far from a sorrowing 
lot, as a rule. And the prisoners are bet¬ 
ter minded to see cheerful faces at the 
grating than faces long drawn and dewed 
with tears. Every applicant for admission, 
who wishes to see a certain prisoner, must 
submit to an examination, the men by a 
warden in the corridor, and the women by 


PRISONS OF THE NATION AND THEIR INMATES. 
















































PRISONS OP THE NATION AND THEIR INMATES. 


3!) 



There is little ornamentation of cells, and of 
the library of 2,000 volumes not many avail 
themselves, probably because they know 
nothing of it. The prisoner usually has com¬ 
pany Whether he wants it or not, for there 
are only 171 cells in use, and 400 men must 
be packed into them. About forty women are 
found in the contingent, but they have a wing 
of their own, and the “ten day men,” so 
called, who are serving a definite sentence, 
are compelled to put on stripes and work 
abqut the yards and galleries. Men. waiting 
trial have an hour of exercise in the morn¬ 
ing and again an hour in the afternoon, under 
watch of their keepers, the exercise consist¬ 
ing in tramping to and fro along *the gal¬ 
leries of their tier. Personal effects, except 
a knife, are allowed to the prisoners, and 
each is provided with a spoon, cup and pan. 

A contrast, in 

NO VENTILATION some ways, to the 

IN BROOKLYN JAIL. is °" ered 

by the jail in 
Brooklyn. It is a castellated building of 
granite, lighted with ample windows and ven¬ 
tilated by swinging panes and skylights, yet 
containing no means for exhausting the foul 
air of the cells. Each cell is a mere niche 
into which air cannot be forced, lienee there 


a matron in a room set apart for the pur¬ 
pose. Lawyers who consult their clients 
have special rooms for their meetings. 

PFI I Q tinT The cel,s > apart from the 
l»U I darkness, are not bad. They 

SO BAD. are about 12 feet by 6 on the 
ground floor and 12 feet high, 
but each tier recedes from the one beneath 
it, so that the top cells are smallest of all. 
Each has a double bunk with a cast iron 
frame and a canvas in place of a mattress. 
A sheet, a blanket and a tiny pillow are al¬ 
lowed to each prisoner. As if the lack of 
a window were not enough, the doors are 
5 feet high and almost impervious by reason 
of the heavy iron grill. Modern prisons aro 
strong enough when they have doors of up¬ 
right bars 4 inches apart. Nobody can walk 
between those bars and the spaces between 
them admit air and light. 


RAYMOND 5TREET 
JAIL, 

BROOKLYN. 


COURT, RAYMOND STREET JAIL. 

OLD JAIL NOW USED AS A BARN. 


are quite as innocent of soap and the pro¬ 
prieties as the people behind the bars, the 
Tombs is not an ideal summer resort. To¬ 
bacco is permitted in all the cells and the 
odor of very bad pipes is one of the appur¬ 
tenances. Considering that of the 400 men 
who make the daily average of prisoners 
300 are awaiting trial, the solace of a bad 
pipe can hardly be refused to them. They 
have food enough, and, though not of a sort 
to please the fastidious, yet to most of them 
it is satisfactory, because it is as good as 
they get in the tenements. Meal hours oc¬ 
cur at 7, at 12 and 4. and the menu com¬ 
prises bread and coffee in the morning, bread 
and tea for supper, and soup, stew and pota¬ 
toes for dinner. Friends can and do send 
in other thiugs to eat, and a peddler is al¬ 
lowed to go through the. building at certain 
hours selling fruit. 

The usual commitment to this prison is GO 
days: the usual delay in trying men accused 
of crime is 30 days, for the administration of 
law in Manhattan is a scandal. It is no un¬ 
common thing for a prisoner to be held for 
three months; waiting the pleasure of the 
District Attorney, and murder cases drag on 
for year after year. The solaces in a long 
imprisonment in the Tombs arc not many. 


CELL IN 

RAYMOND STREET JAIL. 


It is evident that the attempt is made 
to keep the place clean, and, considering the 
class that occupies it, the success is remark¬ 
able. Some men are so obviously dangerous 
to the well being of the college that they 
are led into it with tongs and made to bathe 
at once, but a keeper naively observed of 
the others that they did not need to wash. 
As the friends and relatives of the inmates 

































40 


PRISONS OF THE 'NATION AND THEIR INMATES. 



ROOM 
IN THE 
H0U5E 
.OF DETENTION 


H0U5F0F DETENTION 
MANHATTAN 




is in the place a faded odor of uncleanliness, 
in spite of the busy work of a cleaning and 
painting squad. These workers are under no 
obligation to do anything, but they elect to 
scrub and paint because they are by this means 
enabled to stay outside of their cells all day, 
and time does not hang so heavy on their 
hands as it does on those of the idlers. For¬ 
merly the place was a wonder of villainy, 
and I have seen vermin crawling over the 
walls of a cell and over the body of a prison¬ 
er that lay on the floor. The body, by the 
way, was that of a Polish Jew who had com¬ 
mitted a murder and had starved himself to 
death. He steadfastly refused to wash dur¬ 
ing his incarceration, swearing that it was 
against his religion. Wheh matters became 
unbearable he was stripped, taken into the 
yard and the hose turned on him. With 
creatures like that in the place cleanliness 
was out of the question. Filth is no longer 
tolerated. Even the smaller cattle that in¬ 
habit such places, cockroaches, for example, 
are fought down with such vigor that hardly 
anything is now seen of them, and this is the 
•asier in buildings where steel and iron are 


KITCHEN IN THE 
HOUSE OF DETENTION. 


the structural materials, and there is no de¬ 
caying wood for the insects to burrow into 
or hide behind. 

The architectural system of the Brooklyn 
jail is that of a double block of cells, 408 in 
number, surrounded by the usual stone house. 
In addition to these cells are 24 more used 
as closets and storage places. “Doubling" 
is seldom necessary. With a population half 
as large as- that of Manhattan and only half 
as wicked on ordinary occasions, Brooklyn 
provides more than twice as much ceil room 
for its delinquents as are contained in the 


Tombs. The average number of inmates of 
the jail is 380 mrin and TO women. The wom¬ 
en are kept apart in a separate building 
which was formerly an office and is in a sad 
state of ineffectiveness and disrepair. The 
ceils, where they‘are used instead of dormi¬ 
tories, are so near the street that friends of 
the inmates could pass bottles ol' liquor 
through the windows from the sidewalk, and 
did it, too, until the windows were closed, to 
the shutting out of light arid-ventilation. A 
good deal more liberty is allowed to the wom¬ 
en than to the men—that Is, they have more 


of the freedom of corridors and are kept un¬ 
der lock and key for fewer hours. Most of 
them are imprisoned for slight offensfes, and 
no great injury would be done if they were 
to escape, but this they can be relied upon 
not to do. 


SHERIFF HAS 
MANY FAT FEES. 


cal plums. The 
I from it with 
i been flagrantly 


The office of sheriff 
in Brooklyn, as in 
most other towns, 
is one of the politi- 
incumbent always retires 
money, unless he has 
generous, and it is a 

















































PRISONS OF THE NATION AND THEIR INMATES. 


41 


tradition that he shall hold office but 
once, for the powers need his place 
often as a reward for other henchmen who 
advance their interests. For every pris¬ 
oner in his keeping the sheriff draws from the 
county 28 cents a day. He likewise has title 
to a turnkey’s fee of 37^4 cents every time a 
prisoner is delivered to him; and as the pris¬ 
oner usually is delivered to him several times 
this fee alone amounts to a considerable 
figure. Thus, the prisoner is locked up di¬ 
rectly after his arrest, to wait trial. There is 
one fee. He goes to court and the justice, 
looking him over, adjourns the case till next 
day. Another fee for the sheriff. A second 
time he goes to court, and on this occasion 
his lawyer is not ready. Another fee. A 
third time he is found guilty of stealing $2 
and is remanded for sentence. Another fee. 
Next day he is sentenced. Another fee. If 
the sum is more than $25 he is sentenced to 
prison or the penitentiary, and he goes back 
to jail to await transportation. He may not 
stay there five minutes, but so long as he goes 
through the door the sheriff has another fee. 
Thus, it is easy to see, that by putting politi¬ 
cal judges on the bench, and forming a co¬ 
partnership with them, an expert sheriff can 
make an honest dollar or two out of every 
prisoner, even if he uses the whole 28 cents a 
day for turkey and pie, and stuffs the cul¬ 
prit to bursting. These observations are 
without prejudice to the present incumbent, 
who administers the office better than it is 
usually managed, and who shows a disposi¬ 
tion to treat his charges as creatures with 
minds and rights and stomachs. 

When a United States prisoner is sent to 
this jail for any reason government pays 35 
cents a day for his board. The national pris¬ 
oner is, therefore, an aristocrat in crime and 
looks down “with spurn” upon the common¬ 
alty of tramps and sneaks who have to live on 
7 cents less. But even the federal prisoner is 
not in the vortex of the social swim. That 
place is reserved for the civil prisoner, for 
that pampered Sybarite gets 75 cents a day, 
and can have pate de foie gras and terrapin. 
The civil prisoner is the man who has a con¬ 
tempt of court, or has disobeyed an order 
thereof. For example, a man is sued by his 
wife for support. He replies that he is out 
of a job and cannot support anybody. The 
court orders him to pay $25 a week for her 
living expenses. The man protests that he 
cannot find 25 cents in his clothes. He goes 
to jail, there to remain indefinitely. This is 
an extreme case, yet an occasional one. 
Wives with revenges to gratify, or with love 
affairs in which a husband is de trop, have 
resorted to the court to have that person rus¬ 
ticated, and he has emerged from his isola¬ 
tion to find madame gone with a gentleman 
friend, his house stripped of every bit of fur¬ 
niture and a number of bills to pay about the 
neighborhood. 

Commonly the civil 
prisoner is a man who 

ALIMONY CLUB. X'T 

undue reticence in his payments, yet he is 
not shut up in a cell. He has a room at the 
top with a regular bed and chairs and can 
cook up there, and raise flowers on the win¬ 
dow sill and keep a bird. In one of the suite 
of rooms occupied by civil prisoners in the 
Brooklyn jail hangs the sign of the Alimony 
Club. Its sessions are not reported to be 
particularly jocund. Things of interest do 
happen in quality flats, however. One man 
who would not produce a lot of papers that 
the court wanted to see and who was con¬ 
ferment! v nut. away in the loft, cut his wav 


out and taking advantage of a temporary 
and curious blindness of everybody about the 
place lowered himself from the walls and 
went home. 

It is in the jail that one sees the saddest 
sights that are associated with penal life. 
Here are dread, remorse, shame and despair. 
After the prisoner is sent to the Penitentiary 
he knows what is before him and he settles 
down to make the best of it. He is hi a 
building that is better cared for than the 
jail and he has the securities of cleanliness 


and ignominy added to what he is to endure 
after he reaches prison. As men and women 
are coming and going every day, and as they 
are allowed to receive their friends more 
often than in prison, it is hardly possible to 
bring about the same cleanliness as in a 
state institution, and filth in a dark, confined 
place breeds illness sooner than elsewhere. 
The little knick-knacks that are allowed to 
burden- and brighten their surroundings have 
no place in the jail. The walls are as bare 
and bleak as stone and whitewash can be. 


HOME OF THE 



and of frequent inspection and medical serv¬ 
ice. He has employments that are good for 
him, no matter how willing he is to believe 
otherwise, and he knows that by industry and 
obedience he can shorten his stay materially. 
In jail, unless he is serving a short term for 
a slight offense, he suffers from uncertainty 
and anxiety. If he has committed a serious 
offense he fears the heaviest punishment. He 
realizes, too, that all his imprisonment in 
the jail, which often extends for months, 
counts for nothing, but is so much sufferin'; 


Often the whitewash is an inch thick and 
the warden does not dare remove the old in. 
crustations, lest disease germs be set free. 


PRIVILEGES OF 
NO AVAIL 


Such privileges as 
pertain the in¬ 

mates of the jail may 
be unknown to them. 
They have the daily papers, but as they al¬ 
most invariably read the yellow kind thej 
long term prisoners and that lighten their 
were better off withent rr~. fn* epno-a nt 










































42 



PRISONS OF THE NATION AND THEIR INMATES. 



this sort the weak and criminal class finds 
constant incitements to misdoing. The li¬ 
braries of such jails as have been modern¬ 
ized are small, and there is lttle encourage¬ 
ment to use the books. In the Brooklyn jail, 
for example, the books number but a hundred 
and are kept in the women’s prison. It is 
doubtful if one man in twenty who is con¬ 
signed to the place knows of their existence. 
And the library is not the work of the au¬ 
thorities, but of a little, quiet voiced Woman, 
who, seeing the lack in reading matter, has 
made it her business to provide books. The 
few shelves have been filled at her own ex¬ 
pense, book by book, and she reads them 
first to make sure that they will “do.” 

Here is a matter in which it would be easy 
to interest others if they could be interested 
at all; but the reformation of prisons and 
prison methods is slow—so slow that it is 
heart breaking—because the mass of people 
cannot be brought to take any part in it. 
It is not that they are indifferent to suffer¬ 
ing and wrong, but the suffering is bidden 
from them; they do not read or speak of its 
existence; they do not appreciate the wrongs 
that are done to those who do wrong, and 
they prefer the sunlight to the miasm and 
the darkness. 

Yet, there is a jail in every town, and it 
seems almost impossible that the mass of 
citizens should be ignorant of what it is, or 
indifferent to what it should be. It is more 
easily reformable, probably, than the state 
prison, and, more than all other institutions 
of its kind, it needs reform. 




... 


* > <* 

C , C • 


























The House of Refuge. 


T APPEARS to be 
more easy to shirk 
work in town than 
in the country. No 
doubt that is why so 
many folks like 
town. Ease of es¬ 
cape into the streets 
is inviting to cer¬ 
tain temperaments, 
also, and the young 
fellow whose ideal, so far as he has one, is 
to be a tough, like his big brother, or the 
fellow who used to sit next to him in school, 
finds it not so hard to make himself objec¬ 
tionable in New York as it would be in 
Secaneus. There is this to be considered, 
however: that while Secaucus would placidly 
disapprove him, it would do little to make 
him better. It would regard him as one of 
the disagreeable fixtures, like the mosqui¬ 
toes, and the malaria, and the odors from 
the fertilizer factory, but its constable would 
never receive or heed an appeal to arrest and 
lock him up, unless he had committed ac¬ 
tual felony. Where men gather into con¬ 
gregations of millions this dull indifference 
to evil will not do. Offenders imperil prop¬ 
erty and public comfort. They are easily 
encouraged to assault personal safety. 

The country hoodlum is usually a vulgar 
boor with a saving sense of humor, but the 
city hoodlum seems to take on all the attri¬ 
butes of evil that he sees- and to practice 
his mischiefs unsparingly. He loafs on the 
corner and learns to smoke the fetid cigar¬ 
ette and spjt through his teeth. He drops 
letters from words to indicate that he is tco 
haughty to be precise in his speech. He in¬ 
terlards his conversation with the biggest 
swear words he can master, and his obscen¬ 
ity is more offensive still. One hears talk 
in the tenement districts of the metropolis 
that disheartens and disgusts, for it comes 
from the lips of babes. It is what they hear 
at home, and it is the language that they 
know. 

After learning to smoke and swear, the 
candidate tipples, usually on beer. Buying 
this fluid is called “rushin’ de can,” and 
‘•chasin’ de duck,” and the beer, after it is 
bought in the slum saloons, is wretched 
stuff, made from chemicals, sloppy and fer¬ 
menting, destructive of digestion and not 
even a long allayer of thirst. After a little 
the hoodlum takes to begging pennies for 
this refreshment, and when he is strong 
•nough he does not beg, he demands. 



HOUSE OF REFUGE He has now grown 

to be a nuisance 

NOT A PRISON. and a menace. Yet 

he is not yet a 
criminal. Unless society steps in and checks 
his vicious tendencies he will be, however, 
so society does its duty. It is for the like of 
him that it has created what it calls the 
House of Refuge. The superintendent of this 
house, Omar V. Sage, former warden of Sing 
Sing, refuses to speak of it as a penal insti¬ 
tution. Its purpose is helpful and reforma¬ 
tory, not punitive. Its population is almost 
wholly of boys from the city, although it is 
devised for the care of bad boys from the 
eastern part of the whole state, the western 
section confining its wayward youth to the 
State Industrial School in Rochester. 

Randall's Island is an insulated tract in 
the East River between Manhattan and 
Ward’s Island, the latter containing immense 
asylums and hospitals. It is owned by the 
City of New York, while the House of Ref¬ 
uge itself is the property of an association, 
and the support of the institution falls upon 
the state. The schools are conducted by the 
educational authorities of New York City. In 
spite of this division of ownerships the place 
is managed with little friction, and there is 
little complaint. The system is strict, yet 
kindly and paternal, and Mr. Sage and the 
members of his family are personally liked 
and respected by the boys and girls who have 
been sequestered on the inland. 

It Is a dreary place m winter, with the river 
lashed by storms against the banks and over¬ 
flowing under the floors, but in summer the 
lawns are green and flowers grow in the 
yards, and tall trees give masses of shade. 
The main building is an ancient looking 
structure, really only half a century old, but 
grim and instltUtion-lSke in aspect, topped 
with four little domes that appear to serve 
no function except that of ornament. This 
phalanstery is nearly a thousand feet long, 
and the ceilings are uncommon high in 
the rooms, so that the air and light are bet¬ 
ter than in almost any other correctional es¬ 
tablishment in this land. The windows are 
practically continuous for three and four 
stcries, and are not so strongly barred as 
are those of a prison or jail; indeed, some of 
those facing the inner yard are not barred 
at all, while the main protection is in a 
heavy netting of wire. These defenses against 
the intrusion of tramps who might swim the 
river and look for lodgings are of moral con¬ 
sequence, rather than materially important. 


A stout boy with a tool filched from 
smithy or a stone from the water front might 
cut or break his way out, if it was worth 
while. 


EVEN WASHING 
HAS NO TERRORS. 


It Is the hopeful 
thing about the 
work of a refuge 
like this that so 
many of the inmates realize that It is not 
worth while. Many of them are better oft 
than they would be in their poor substi¬ 
tutes for homes in the metropolis. They 
have few luxuries, to be sure, but they have 
the necessities and a few of the comforts. 
They also avoid whippings, whereas at home 
the spankings were frequent, vigorous and 
partly deserved. In time they grow tract¬ 
able and even washing has no terrors for 
ftiem. They have work to do, and they must 
study, but where in town is there such a 
big space for foot ball or base ball as there 
is here? And where can one be ill so pleas¬ 
antly as here, and have so good looking a 
young woman at one’s side to give broth 
and medicine and other needful, though ab¬ 
horrent things? 


And speaking of women. It is surprising 
to find so many of them in a place occupied 
so generally by boys. There are twelve ma¬ 
trons, a teacher in cooking, a teacher of 
sewing, a teacher of music, who is likewise 
organist, a bookkeeper and nineteen school 
teachers. The men employes are in the 
shops and trade schools, but include also 3 . 
couple of assistant superintendents, a clerk 
and steward and watchmen. The authority 
of the girjs who teach the usual English 
branches is respectfully recognized, and tne 
behavior of the classes in the school rooms 
challenges comparison with that of classes 
in the common schools over on ths main¬ 
land. There are naturally more dull faces 
than among an equal number of lads at lib¬ 
erty, but there are faces as frank and intel¬ 
ligent as any in the schools and streets. 

At this writing there are in the House of 
Refuge 775 boys and 95 girls. Bess than a 
hundred of this population are colored. Dur¬ 
ing the year over 1,300 children were cared 
for and nearly 500 were discharged—given 
back to the keeping of relatives and friends. 
Most of the patients are foreign, or at 
least of foreign parentage, a recent 
census of children received giving 240 
Russians, Irish, Italians and Germans, to 
90 white and 45 colored Americans. The ad¬ 
ditions of Austrians, Bohemians, Canadians, 
English, French, Huns, Mexicans, Rouman¬ 
ians, Scotch, Swedes and other nationalitie* 
are inconsiderable. The Russians and Pole* 


















PRISONS OF THE NATION AND THEIR INMATES. 


44 



i 3* ^, N > 

m. xm'm*' 


^ THE—- 
PR.INTIN q 
OFFICE 


DIM1NQ 

RjOQii 


tre mostly Hebrews, who have been con¬ 
signed to the place to be instructed in the 
Tiews of 'American citizens respecting prop¬ 
erty, which views have not met their spoken 
approval, but which they will, none the less, 
respect hereafter. 

Since the institution was opened in 1824, on 
Madison square, opposite where the Fifth 
Avenue Hotel now stands, neatly 30.000 chil¬ 
dren have been cared for. The Borough of 
Manhattan furnishes more than half of all 
the offenders, and most of them come from 
the tenement districts; yet there are well 
bred youth in the company who have not 
profited by their breeding, but have insisted 
on staying out o’ nights and smoking rope 
and paper cigarettes, and consorting with evil 
company, and refusing to obey parental com¬ 
mands. Such boys are taken to court by par¬ 
ents or guardians and committed to the House 
to earn a new liberty by conforming to proper 
rules, or to relieve the community from a 
burden till they are of age. 

For this is practi- j 
cally a reforma- j 
tory. albeit not for 
very hard criminals. 
Boys of 16 and over are sent to Elmira for 
felony and younger lads of careless morals J 
may be sent, in accordance with family 
wishes, to the New York Juvenile Asylum or 1 




hou<5e: OF 
R£ FO GFT5 


CIGARETTES 
WORST OF EVILS. 


the Catholic Protectory. Those who go to 
Randall's Island are, theoretically, a trifle too 
bad to mix with the population of the Asylum 
and Protectory, yet are disqualified by age 
from associating with the more experienced 
criminals of Elmira. The ages for reception 
here extend from 12 to 18, but any child can 
be kept till he is 21 if he does not show the 
proper disposition to reform. From 12 to 16 
the youth are committed here for felony; 
from 16 to 18 for misdemeanor and disorderly 
conduct, such as keeping late hours, playing 
truant, incessantly, and cigarette smoking. 
The superintendent says that this latter of¬ 
fense is really one of the serious immoralities, 
for till'a-boy has his growth it will affect his 


rooms and appliances. In the present ar¬ 
rangement the first division is composed of 
boys who are over 17 years old, the second of 
those whose ages extend from 14 to 17, and 
the third of the smallest children, from 12 

BOYS UNDER 

CONSTANT WATCH. v08l “- th ' 

children sleep¬ 
ing in great halls that are watched all night 
by keepers who sit at a desk on a raised 
platform. To facilitate this watching the 
rooms are faintly lighted during the night. 
There is an exception to the dormitory 
allotment in the case of-the second class, for 


health and his views and way of life. One of 
the hardest tasks imposed on the officers is 
to keep the youngsters from getting tobacco. 

If a boy is found with any of this pernicious 
weed in his pockets or his locker, he loses 
six weeks of his time allowance—that is, he 
leaves six weeks later than he would, other¬ 
wise. Tobacco is smuggled in by friends of 
the younkers and occasionally some civilian 
employe about the place, in the over-kindness 
of.his heart, will break off a bit of old plug 
or impart a cigarette to a boy who is well 
enough awaTe‘that he is not allowed to smoke 
it. Visitors to the institution ought to know 
in advance that for giving tobacco to any of 
the inmates they can be sent to the peniten¬ 
tiary for a year or fined $500, or both—a pun¬ 
ishment so grotesquely in excess of the of¬ 
fense that, like the ordinances against spit¬ 
ting in street cars, it is never enforced, as a 
reasonable penalty might be. 

There is no association of the older and 
younger boys, the primary department being 
entirely separated from the rest of the build¬ 
ing by a thick stone wall pierced only by a 
single iron door, which is always kept locked. 
The girls occupy a cleanly and rather pleasant 
division at the southern extremity of the 
buildings, and have their own schools, work¬ 
rooms and play grounds. It is the hope of 
Mr. Sage that a classification will be permitted 
by the managers that will enable him to en¬ 
tirely separate the innocent and criminal in 
the older classes, and the innocent and vic¬ 
ious in the younger. This he cannot do ef¬ 
fectually without their aid", for it will in¬ 
volve architectural changes and increased 
















































45 


PRISONS OF THE NATION AND THEIR INMATES. 





the. Mi\R,en 

TO DINNER^ 


is- if 'is- 

TAILOR, SHOP 


HOSPITAL 


MiiiPg 


the unfortunates who compose this body are 
consigned to ceils. This is not according to 
the wishes of the present superintendent, 
but ’ he has to'use the cells-for the reason 
that they fill what would otherwise be a 
dormitory. • /They are not necessary to dis¬ 
cipline, he says, and he hopes to be able 
to remove them. The objection to them is 
not so - serious as it ris in most prisons, 
because these cells, which form a double 
block in the:center of one of the great halls, 
are .well lighted. - They are not hollowed 
out of the heavy masonry, like those in Sing 
Sing, but are fronted with open work of 
bars, are fairly spacious and quite clean. 
The objection to then) is that they have no 
ventilation.. Despite their - open fronts, it 
is hard to force air into them. A brisk wind 
blowing through the open windows is an 
advantage, but there is no effective appara¬ 
tus for the removal of the fouled air, and 
when there is no wind there is of necessity 
stagnation. 

In appearance the dormitories do not differ 
from those of any hospital or barrack. They 
are lighted by the tall windows on both 
sides, reaching from floor to ceiling, and the 
beds are placed in long ranks, sufficiently 
separated, and each boy has a little locker 
for his clothing and effects. Many of our 
soldiers are not so well housed, and strict 
cleanliness is exacted. Every bed has a 
spring mattress, which is manufactured on 
the premises by the inmates. The look ' of 
things in these halls is really better than 
that of the offices, where the age and bard 
usage of the structure shows itself in peeled 
Tarnish, fallen plaster and dulled paint. It 


is a heavy, old fashioned looking place and 
stands in need of various architectural 
changes. 

The living is simple, hut wholesome, and 
boys who have shaken their nerves by cigar¬ 
ettes, drink and the following of vicious ex¬ 
amples soon find themselves restored to 
health. It is said that rogues have no bet¬ 


ter restorative than a period of seclusion 
in a prison, for the regular hours, the plain 
food, the habits of order, the removal of 
excitements and temptations renew their 
digestion and power of sleep. The diet for 
a recent week is appended. It is eaten from 
metal dishes on plain tables without cloths, 
and every boy has enough: 


FRIDAY—Breakfast: Coffee, bread, jelly, 
ger bread, stewed apricots. ' 


Dinner: Bean soup, bread. Supper: Bread, milk, gin- 


Supper: Bread, milk, steamed oatmeal. 

SUNDAY—Breakfast: Coffee, bread, syrup. 

Supper: Bread, milk, cookies. 

MONDAY—Breakfast: Coffee, bread, syrup. 

Bread, milk, stewed prunes. 

TUESDAY—Breakfast: Coffee, bread, jelly. 

toes. Supper: Bread, milk, ginger bread, stewed peaches. 
WEDNESDAY—Breakfast: Coffee, bread, syrup. Dinner: Bread, 
milk, stewed potatoes. 

THURSDAY'—Breakfast: Coffee, bread. syrup. Dinner: 
tatoes. Supper: Milk, bread, butter. 


Dinner: 

Bread, 

corned 

beef 

hash, pickled beets. 

Dinner: 

Bread, 

'baked 

pork 

and beans, pickles. 

Dinner: 

Bread, 

beef 

stew, 

potatoes. • Supper: 

Dinner: 

Bread, 

corned 

beef 

and cabbage, pola- 


,„ r . ... Bread, chicken 

hot buns, sugar cookies. 


pea soup. Supper: Bread, 
fricassee, stewed po- 































































46 


rRISONS OF THE NATION AND THEIR INMATES. 


PLAY PROMOTES Health is also pro¬ 
moted by play in the 

BOYS’ HEALTH. big yards, where it 

is hearty and noisy, 
oppressive as the walls appear, and in the 
play rooms, to which the inmates repair in 
bad weather. Military drill has likewise 
been introduced by Mr. Sage, who is an old 
guardsman, and he reports good results 
from it. Boys like it better than men, for 
it is man’s work, and so confers dignity 
and importance on them. Moreover, they 
have real guns—old Springfield rifles— 
and can, therefore, make a better and 
more warlike appearance on parade 
than can some other inmates of in¬ 
stitutions. In Elmira the men are still 
going through the infantry manual with 
•’fake" guns of wood. It is not feasi- 


procured for the purpose the sailors might 
sail away in it and become pirates. The 
ship is no longer used and remains as a 
curiosity. The New York Board of Educa¬ 
tion has established here one of its 
“centers" for free lectures and the children 
have a chance to listen to talks on travel, 
With stereopticon illustrations; on chemis¬ 
try, with experiments; on literature and 
music, with readings and songs, and on 
domestic science. They make an excellent 
audience,- larger in numbers than those in 
most of the “centers” in Manhattan. 

It is in the trade 

HOPES BASED ON instruction that 

hopes are based 
for the reclama 
tion of the boys who are sent here, although 
they are of a primary sort and are hampered 


TRADE SCHOOLS. 


Gymnastics and singing exercises are ob¬ 
ligatory, and if a boy has sand and strength 
enough, he earns a place on the base ball 
team, where he becomes a subject of admira¬ 
tion, and the fact of having a ball team that 
challenges schools in Westchester and that, 
is trusted to go to the main land, unwatched, 
and whips them, does not a little for the mo¬ 
rale of the institution. The toughest boys 
are reputed to make the best ball players. 
In the summer the boys bathe and frolic in 
East River, 150 of them at a time, and they 
rarely try to escape by swimming over to 
Manhattan. The young ones, at their sing¬ 
ing lessons, exhibit a great spirit and hearti¬ 
ness—more of that, indeed, than tunefulness, 
for their ears lack nicety and the superfn-' 
tendent says that he also finds they ladk a 
sense of humor, as a class. It is no great 



T DRAWING 
CLASS- 


buildings and lawms and a considerable por¬ 
tion is filled by marsh, which will one day 
be filled in, without doubt, but there are 
left for tillage eight acres, and on these 
It is possible to raise a considerable amount 
of “truck,” which is put to account in the 
internal economy of the institution. 

The division of time prescribes four hours 
a day for school, five for work, one and a 
half for drill, four and a half for meals 
and play, and the rest in the dormi¬ 
tories. Labor is remitted on Sundays 
and there are many recreations and de¬ 
vices for instructing and interesting the in¬ 
mates. There, is, for example, a counterfeit 
of a small ship on the dry land, just in 
front of the office. The purpose of this was 
to teach practical navigation to the boys, 
and it was feared that if a real ship were 


by lack of machinery and appliances. The 
boys do the printing needed in the business 
of the place, they raise flowers and let them 
alone after they are raised, thus repressing 
the natural instinct of youth, which is to 
tear them out of the earth and dance on 
them; they do fairly well at carpentry, ma¬ 
sonry, plutnbing, painting, machine work, 
blacksmithing, and are devoting themselves 
■with moderate enthusiasm to drawing, carv¬ 
ing-and modeling. The girls are instructed 
in sewing, cooking and household duties. 
What a pity it is that so many girls of the 
tenements have no chance to learn how to 
make a home comfortable until they are 
sent to a place like this! And it is the dis¬ 
comfort of the tenement home that drives 
so many to the streets to begin a career of 
evil. 


wonder, for life to them has been a tragedy. 

To give a smart appearance to the boys 
they are dressed in gray uniforms, but these 
garments are not often smartly worn. They 
are, for instructional purposes, divided into 
two battalions, which meet now and again 
in competition, and are ready to challenge 
any equal number of troops in the National 
Guard. They have a drum and fife corps, but 
no band, and the bugle sounds reveille and 
taps. A citizen major commands the corps, 
but the captains and lieutenants are in¬ 
mates. Badges and ribbons denote scholar¬ 
ship and behavior, and promotion must be 
earned by study and good conduct. When a 
boy runs away ten weeks are added to his 
term, though he can make his account good 
by an exceptional earning of marks after¬ 
ward. If a youngster who is allowed to go 
home' on parole, as happens now and then, 
and violates his promise, he is regarded with 
j contempt by all his class mates. For after 
' such an elopement boys who might otherwise 
, have been released for the holidays are kept 
I in, and numbers, therefore, suffer. This in 
itself is enough to account for the disgust, 
but there is a moral objurgation in the atti- 
| tude also. 

COURTESY HERE loT 
IS NOTICEABLE. fZ 

i no authority after they have been received. 

| All rules are made by the board of managers, 

I and these rules do not always meet with the 
1 views of philanthropists and penologists. On* 


ble to fire the Springfieds, however, for the 
island is not large and there is a hospital 
but a little way from the home; hence, if 
there were target practice or volley firing, 
somebody would almost certainly be hurt. 
The exercise in marching and handling the 
rifles gives a good set-up to the lads and 
they will probably be the better for it all 
their lives. The gun racks are to be in a 
semi-circular hall, where some of them have 
already been placed without any special' 
guard. So long as cartridges cannot be had 
for them, they would be of little service in 
the hands of mutineers. 

Farm and garden work is also enforced 
and has its effect on the health of the boys. 
The premises embrace thirty-seven and one- 
half acres, of which sixteen are covered by 
































PRISONS OF THE NATION AND THEIR INMATES. 


47 


of the latter has not hesitated to express him¬ 
self to the effect that the managers are old 
fogies, and that the best results cannot be 
expected till they resign and give way to 
younger, more active and experienced men, 
to whom the conduct of a reformatory is not 
a side issue or an opportunity for amateur 
experiments. Still, the feeling that is shown 
toward the unfortunates is obviously gener¬ 
ous, and as a rule the trust imposed in them 
is repaid. One is especially struck by the 
courtesy that is displayed in the yards and 
shops, the boys saluting and standing at at¬ 
tention whenever an officer appears. 

While an inmate can be kept till he is of 
age, he can also be released whenever he 
shows bis fitness to go back into the world, 
provided, however, that he has had a record 
of seventy-eight weeks of good conduct. It 
is in many ways to be regretted that associ¬ 
ation is forced upon all, for it has been found 
in almost every penal institution that the 
good seldom lift the bad, whereas the bad 
easily drag down the good. And yet, the 
sense of honor, that some of the most unprom¬ 
ising display when trusted to go to Man¬ 
hattan with money, on errands, and the fact 
that only two or three attempts a year are 
made to run off, when liberty days are given 
to at least 500 a year, is comforting. 

Punishments consist in loss of marks, re¬ 
striction to the “roost,” as the boys call the 
upper floor, and confinement in a cell for one, 
two or three days, according to the gravity 
of the offense. There is np spanking and no 
starving. The health, indeed, shows that 
there is a judicious balance of rest, exercise 
and feeding. In 1900 there were only three 
deaths, and one of those was by murder. The 
boy who committed it is serving a life sen¬ 
tence in Sing Sing—a meek looking little fel¬ 
low, too. This high health is the more cu¬ 
rious, because most of the children come from 


ill kept homes, but it shows the recuperative ] 
value of normal living, proper nourishment 
and fresh air. A resident physician is need¬ 
ed. but one calls at the house daily. 


BEST PUPILS. 


Religious ser vie e s 

HEBREWS MAKE are conducted by 

Catholic. Protestant 
and Hebrew' chap¬ 
lains, and there is a Sunday school for mem¬ 
bers of each denomination. The Hebrews 
number more than they would seem to, of 
right, considering their usual peacefulness 
and their proportion to the populace of the 
big cjty, but this fact is explainable by the 


absence of any Hebrew institution that cor¬ 
responds to the Catholic Protectory and the 
Juvenile Asylum. The Hebrews are among 
the most proficient of the scholars in the day 
classes, and are not as bard in appearance 
as some of the inmates. It is not easy to 
rid the -boys of the idea that toughness ;s 
manliness and they cling to many of the 


customs and traditions of rowdy life, espec¬ 
ially in their speech, which they interlard 
with a slang of their own, whereof these are 
specimens: “Chuck” is bread; “ginger is 
gingerbread; “spud,” potato; "scorf,” a glut¬ 
ton; “chuck scorf,” a great eater of bread; 
“snitch,” tell tale: “up,” a captain or lieu¬ 
tenant “hard guy," bad boy; “cities,” shoes 
made in factories; “stuff,” tobacco; “strik¬ 
er,” match; “whiffing,” smoking; “girk,” 
a chewed tobacco quid, saved for smoking; 
“rakes,” a chum; “had a fierce goat on,” 
means was angry. 


When Mr. Sage became warden at Sing j 
Sing a convict one day dropped on Iiis knees 
before him, as he was making his rounds 
through the place, and begged for permission 
to speak. He had been trying, he said, for 
six years to do this, and had never till then | 
had a chance. He wanted to explain cer- j 
tain business matters that affected his fam- i 
ily and that added to the burden of his ex- | 


istence. Mr. Sage did away with a system 
that permitted such a state of things as this, 
and he not only listened to the convicts when 
they had anything to say, but he piaced let¬ 
ter boxes in various parts of the building, 
into which the prisoners could drop requests 
and complaints. He permits and encour¬ 
ages the writing of similar letters here, and 
every evening there is quite a batch of notes 
to read, mostly requests for a personal 
meeting in order to explain alleged lacks 
in studies or violations of rules that threat¬ 
en a reduction in rank. Inmates may re¬ 
ceive all letters from friends but they can 
write to them only once a month. 

When the boy leaves the institution he is 
kept in sight for a while by its officers and 
agents who cause his rearrest, if bp goes 
wrong, who warn him if they see that he is 
slipping into evil ways, and who help him 
when they see that he means to do right. Not 
a few of the inmates enlist in the army and 
navy, and good reports come of them from 
the Philippines and elsewhere. It is 
guessed, rather than known, that about 75 
per cent, of all discharged members of this 
community behave well after gaining their 
liberty, but the reports of some agents 
would indicate better than that, if it were 
not that some of the boys remove from New' 
York and are. therefore lost sight of. One 
of the visiting agents who represents the 
girls’ department, reports that of sixty-three 
girls recently set free, forty-eight were do¬ 
ing well at last account, seven were doing 
indifferently well and eight were going 
wrong. The boys’ visiting agent declares 
that of 2S6 boys he watches, 92 per cent, 
are behaving well, and only 8 per cent have 
gone back to mischief. 

A record like this shows that the institu¬ 
tion is an important factor in reform of 
else that young human nature, even in Man¬ 
hattan, is not so bad as people had supposed 
it. 














The Released Convict. 



KE all else that per¬ 
tains to the well be¬ 
ing of the criminal, 
the matter of pro¬ 
viding for him after 
he has been set free 
has received little 
attention from . the 
people. Yet it is a 
thing of vital conse¬ 
quence. Shall he be 
allowed to learn 
evil in a prison, come back to us worse 
than when he went away, and be then ex¬ 
pected to go virtuously to work in a dis¬ 
trict that he formerly depredated? If he 
were always sent to a reformatory we would 
expect good conduct from him, but then he 
Is not always sent there. On the contrary, 
he is generally sent to a prison where the 
inducements to better living are unim¬ 
portant. 

He returns to the world bleached with 
long confinement, blinking in the unaccus¬ 
tomed light, his trade forgotten or he 
grown rusty at it, his friends cold or re- 
repellent. if he has any. He has no money, 
or but a dollar or two, and he knows that if 
the fact of his imprisonment is discovered 
it will stand against him when he tries to 
obtain employment. He may have been liv¬ 
ing a life of isolation so long that the whole 
world has gone past him and he goes back 
into a community that does not know' him, 
and that is surrounded by conditions he has 
hardly more than heard of. 

One convict who left Sing Sing a while ago 
and who returned to New York City had 
never seen, till that return, an elevated rail¬ 
road, nor a trolley car, nor the Brooklyn 
bridge, nor the Statue of Liberty; the eight 
stcry tenements were new, the asphalt streets 
were something to wonder at, the saloons 
were more gorgeous and more orderly than 
they had been, Broadway, instead of being a 
proper sort of street with stages rocking and 
tumbling along the length of it. was a roaring 
canyon with 300 foot cliffs of masonry beetling 
over it, and cable cars were clanging, and 
there were arc lights everywhere, and it was ' 



all startling and even terrifying. This man 
was as an infant in a great Babylon, knowing 
not which way to turn nor wtiat to do, and 
every convict who has served a term of sev¬ 


eral years is like him. 

In some states there are shelters-for dis¬ 
charged prisoners, where they may lie hid for 
a few days while friends try to get work for 
them: but, it is asked,- If the prison-is a 
place of evil associations is not the' convict 
just as bad off in a shelter, among a' number 
of other,returned rascal^, as he is in prison? 
Nay, is he not in a worse state, since the dis¬ 
cipline is relaxed and there-is freedom of 
communicaiion between these jail birds, and 
liberty to concoct plots against the country’s 
peace? 


ALL WILLING 
TO TRY HONESTY. 


Theoretically this 
may be the case, 
but as a matter 
of fact, the crim¬ 
inal is not anxious to hurry behind the bars 
again, and is willing to give a trial to honesty 
for awhile. Considering that he has been a 
criminal, his behavior after he returns to the 
world is not usually conspicuous for evil. If 
we had ideal prisons there would be little 
cause for anxiety regarding the. people who 
came out of them. But our prisons are far 
from ideal, and if the state has to re-absorb 
the outcasts it ought to occur to it that in 
self defense the outcasts should be made fit 
for residence and citizenship. There are 
associations for the relief of convicts, and 
the Salvation Army has done a good deal for 
them, but they can not make amends for the 
suppression and neglect whereby the life 
and skill and hope of the prisoner are starv¬ 
ed or crushed. A prison ought to be a place 
of encouragement. Instead of that, it is 
a place of discouragement. The society that 
tries to remedy its defects must begin at the 
beginning and remedy the whole system. 
Failing that it should, if it were able, supply 
to the discharged convict such knowledge 
and training as he did not gain in confine¬ 
ment. And that means a great expenditure, 
and there is no money to meet it. It w'ould 
be absurd, indeed, if the state were asked for 
3500,000 a year for schools and shelters for 
men whose chances in life it had destroyed. 

It has been objected to homes and shelters 


for discharged convicts that they continue 
the effects and associations of the prisons, 
instead of leading away from them, and by 
offering charity to the man who should be 
stimulated hot to ask it he is kept in his 
weak, dependent and sunken condition. So 
long as he feels that he is welcome there, 
or has a right to stay, he will never be will¬ 
ing to leave, and the longer he remains with¬ 
out the exercise of his own initiative, the 
more ineffective he becomes and the more 
reliable to return to crime as a means of 
livelihood. 

And it is hard to find men and women who 
take a sufficient interest in convicts to sac¬ 
rifice their lime and means for their welfare. 
Indeed, the whole matter of penology makes 
but a small appeal to public interest, and 
the indifference of the masses to prisons 
and reformatory methods is one of the great¬ 
est obstacles to reform, and one of the 
strongest intrenchments of- the politician in 
the place that should be occupied by the stu¬ 
dent and. philanthropist. Public opinion that 
is supposed to make laws, and that inforced 
the swift trial and conviction of a Czolgosz, 
ought likewise to enforce the sequence of the 
laws, both for the good fortune of the inno¬ 
cent and the conversion of the guilty. • 


PUBLIC WORKS out*'the ZmlXZ 

BEST WAY OUT. |,rovldin S for the dis¬ 
charged convict would 
be tu establish some system of public works 
whereon and whereby he could be employed, 
immediately on his release. This would ob¬ 
viate the delays and trials that confront the 
man who, whether hard and brazen or shrink¬ 
ing and fearful, realizes or fancies that he 
has been spotted as a jailbird, and that many. 


even of the poorest laborers, will resent hav¬ 
ing to associate with him either at work or 
aWay from it. Yet, here again, we are con¬ 
fronted with the vital objection that so long 
as a man is employed on such a work he is 
as plainly under suspicion as if he were still 
in stripes. The belief is growing that the 
sooner a man gets away from all prison as¬ 
sociations and influences the better for him. 
If he could lose himself in the community 
within five minutes from the time he leaves 





















PRISONS OF THE NATION AND THEIR INMATES. 


49 



his cell for good—it is to be hoped, for 
good—his future would be best assured. 

In Europe there are agencies where a dis¬ 
charged prisoner can call and ask for work 
or information, or temporary help, or the 
loan of tools and such matters, and in time 
we may have such here. As between such an 
agency and the saloon or the dive, where the 
ex-prisoner has an invitation to come and 
sell a vote, or meet the political boss of the 
ward, or a burglar or two who need help, it 
need hardly be said which is the most to his 
advantage. Another agent, who may arrive 
and who should arrive before, is a repre¬ 
sentative of the prison, who studies and 
knows his men; knows how far they can be 
trusted, what work they are best qualified to 
do, and then hunts up places for them. He 
must do this quietly. He must find a va¬ 
cancy, and inform the employer that he has 
a man to fill it. The employer must knotv 
the history of his new workman, but the 
shopmates of the latter must not. And the 
agent must post the prisoner before his re¬ 
lease, telling him where to go, what to do 


and how to conduct himself. He must make 
the convict feel and know that he has in him 
a trusted and secretive friend, who will be 
stern with him if he finds him wavering in 
the right path, but who will always extend a 
hand to help him over its steep places and 
who will even look after his neglected family 
while he is locked up or seeking work, or 
will see him safely out of town if he finds 
or fears that his old associations will rise 
against him when he attempts to lead a bet¬ 
ter life. 

There is no public 

BEGINNING OF concern that looks 

A GOOD WORK. ^ 

there is in the Prison Association of New 
York—a type of organization that has its kin 
in several, if not in most of the states—the 
beginning of an important society. It is lim¬ 
ited in'its operations, because it has no fixed 
fund, and must rely on individual help to 
carry on its excellent work. The house it oc¬ 
cupies on East Fifteenth street i3 an old 
residence, grown rather shabby in late years, 


h OME OF THE PRISON 
REFORM ASSOCIATION . 


applicants. The other day, while I was chat¬ 
ting with the Rev. Samuel J. Barrows, the 
wise and optimistic secretary of the associa¬ 
tion, a foreigner entered. It was a raw, cold 
day, and he was lightly dressed, but topped 
with a stovepipe hat. He was just from 
Blackwell's Island, he said, and would life* 


and marked by an Inconspicuous sign. Men 
would hardly care to be seen going into it if 
they burned red fire in front. Here a little 
company of shrewd, experienced, practical, 
yet sympathetic men meet the shorn and 
shaven delegates from the penitentiaries, 
prisons and reformatories, Inquire Into their 
need^ and smuggle them into places. There 
is more work that such delegates can do than 
even they realize, when they regain their lib¬ 
erty. At first a test of some sort la put upon 
an applicant in order to see if he Is sincere, 
or if he is a rounder or recidivist. If he ap¬ 
pears to be unskilled and of the laborer 
class, he is put at work scrubbing floors. It 
is a curious fact that a “bum” will not do 
this work. He will shy at it and find an ex¬ 
cuse to run away. The man who really 
means to earn a place or tools and clothes 
to resume his trade withal, will do what Is 
asked of him. 

Of course there are oddities among these 

• 


THE MAIN 
OFFICE. 












































60 


PRISONS OF THE NATION AND THEIR INMATES. 


some clothing a trifle warmer than he had 
on, and would also be grateful for a pot hat 
which would suit better than a tile with his 
straitened circumstances. He chatted in 
French and Italian as well as in English, 
and Anally obtained the needed change. He 
had been a teacher of languages. One day 
he possessed himself of a naughty photograph 
and showed it to somebody. That stern con- 
server of the people’s rights, Anthony Corn- 
stock, was instaut upon his trail. For this 
crime he had the professor sent to the peni- 


back to society in January dressed in a straw- 
hat and pajamas. 

One of the properties of the association is 
a store room, filled with clothing. Here 
it is possible to fit out any applicant, from 
the ground up, from the offerings that the 
charitable have made, and the shelves con¬ 
tain coats of many colors, hats of all sizes 
and diverse shapes, collars, shoes, under¬ 
clothes and other necessities, all numbered 
and tagged according to size, and all re¬ 
spectable in appearance. At first the mana¬ 



tentiary for six months. Quite possibly a 
day in jail would have served as a tvarning 
and example, but Mr. Comstock has no pa¬ 
tience with sinners, though a certain re¬ 
former has made himself liable to the law 
he so rigidly enforces in showing his plunder 
to clergymen and others. The professor 
emerged at the expiration of his sentence, 
ruined, of course, and was anxious to reach 
Mexico or some other part of the w-orld where 
he was not known, that he might begin life 
anew. 

In another instance a West Indian came 


gers were ready in their generosity and gave 
out small sums of money, but one of them 
tracked a few graduates one evening to a 
“three cent schooner house,” and saw them 
lift their tankards of chemical beer and drink 
a health to the “green guys” of East Fif¬ 
teenth street. After that money was not 
distributed. 

It seems extraordinary at first thought that 
not a few applicants for relief are men who 
have never seen the inside of a prison. They 
chance the suspicion incurred in entering the 
house, because they are of the sort to whom a 




few suspicions more or less are no great mat¬ 
ter. To them the association represents food 
and lodging, and if they could not find these 
essentials in East Fifteenth street they would 
go to some other place: anything, rather 
than work. These pretenders never get far, 
however. The inspector questions them and 
requires to see their discharge. They have 
lost it. Well, then, their names and numbers 
on the penitenitary list. They give a name 
and any number that occurs to them. To 
their surprise a number of papers are taken 
from a desk and looked over and their names 
are not on them. Hence they are dismissed 
in disgrace—a deeper disgrace in the eye of 
every honest burglar than that of having 
“done time on de island.” Still, a few- of the 
examples who tell the truth about their an¬ 
tecedents do not act it any too well. Sev¬ 
eral of their benefactors have lost hats and 
overcoats. 


The worthy fellow, and there are many 
such, always has a fair chance to secure em¬ 
ployment. Several steamship companies, 
contractors and others who hire men by doz¬ 
ens and hundreds are always ready to listen 
to applicants who have the Indorsement of 
the association. The ex-prisoners are not 
usually long about the office. They disap¬ 
pear presently, and there is a new soldier in 
one of the harbor forts, d. new fireman in a 
hold of an outgoing ship,-a new pick and 
shovel man in the tunnel workings, who is a 
stranger to his mates and who. need not as¬ 
semble them to listen to fhe story of his past, 
unless he wants to, and is proud of it. 


RELUCTANT 


There are not so many 
applicants, for relief as 

TO SEEK HELP. might be imagined. 

Usually the convict is a 
little sensitive about his sin and its punish¬ 
ment, and he seeks work on his own account, 
or is harbored by his friends, some of whom 
are bad ones and lead him straight back to 
the devil. It is not often that more than 
half a dozen men are “carried” at a time 
by the association. Work is obtained for 
them as cooks, printers, cleaners and jobbers 
about the premises till something better and 
more premanent can be found for them. A 
contract is made with a cheap hotel for lodg¬ 
ings, and with a not especially ambitious 
restaurant for meals, and tickets for these 
luxuries are bestowed on the applicants. Oc¬ 
casionally a man is provided in this fashion 
for as long as six weeks, but he must be a 
college professor or something of that kind 
to justify such care. 


The best men come from Elmira, and the 
worst from the penitentiary, for in the first 
case we have a sympathetic and intelligent 
system, devised to liberate the convict from 
idleness, sin and ignorance, while in the 
“Pen” we have a political system, tne head 
of the establishment owing his appointment 
to Croker in return for being a relative, 
while the guards and other appointees are a 
common lot, some of whom are said to be 
drunk frequently. The prison graduate has 
an advantage over the man from the peniten¬ 
tiary in O.at the state gives him $10 and a 
suit of pretty good clothes when he has ft:-? 
liberty, but the penitentiary convict has 
nothing, unless he has committed a. felony, 
in which case, if he has been locked up for 
over a year, he will have $5 and a suit of 
clothes on which some contractor has realized 
a few needed pennies, for they say it will 
last till the next, shower, and after that it 
dissolves, leavingthe alarmed and astonished 
owner on the sidewalk, a prey to Mr. Com¬ 
stock. Are the men appreciative of what is 
done for them? Fairly so, yes. It is almost im¬ 
possible to say how-many of them give th« 














































PRISON'S OF THE NATION AND THEIR INMATES. 


51 



best proof of their appreciation by avoiding 
appearances of evil forever after, because 
they drift away to other states, or they die, 
or they ship as sailors and disappear in for¬ 
eign lands, or they change their names and 
become bank presidents, or something, but it 
is thought that 50 per cent, of them reform. 
Some enthusiasts hold out for 75 per cent. 
And even the supposed habitual criminal may 
upset theories by becoming virtuous, over 
night, and staying that way till the end, 
sternly refusing all chances to throw up a 
good job and go back to stealing. 


the parole system is experimental in New 
York, and does not meet the approval of all 
who have dealings with the criminal, but 
there is this advantage for the prisoner, that 
he is released only when he has a place. At 
least this is an ostensible advantage, for as 
a matter of fact, the agents of the associa¬ 
tion who investigate the cases of 200 Elmira 
graduates every year, find that some of the 
offers of employment are “fakes” that ema¬ 
nate from relatives or friends, who take this 
method of securing an early release for the 
unhappy one. In every case the man who is 


influences that are stronger than his will; 
and his will is seldom firm. He thinks he 
must come to town, regardless of the work 
that offers in the country, and it is in town 
that he is without friends, food, lodging or 
hope. He cheers his spirits with drink, and 
the kind of drink he drinks makes him 
vicious. He gets into a fight, or is tempted 
into some scrape of law breaking, and al¬ 
most before he has breathing time he is 
renumbered, put into stripes again, and is 
back in his old home w'ith the thick walls 
and superfluous bars. If he is of the better 
sort he may be “cut” by his relatives and 
his former friends, for he bears the stamp 
of the prison, if not on his body or his 
morals, at least on his mind. But if he is 
not of the better sort, as he seldom is, the 
friends who do not cut him would confer a 
great favor if they would. 

“I’m 35 years old, and I’ve been in prison 
fifteen years,” was the wail of one convict. 
“What have you learned in that time?” was 
asked. “Nothing,” was the despondent and 
significant answer. Society had not taught 
him. His keepers had not taught him. Yet 
society punished him for being untaught. 

The labor unions are down on sinners. 
They will not allow them to learn 
trades in prison; they will not allow 
prison made goods to be sold; they will not 
allow more than a small proportion of the 
prisoners to work at any one calling. And 
when the men come out of prison the unions 
clamor that they must not be permitted to 
find work. The logical outcome of this at¬ 
titude is that the unions and other righteous 
people must support offenders all their lives 
in the idleness of prisons and almshouses, or 


There is, for in- 
THERE’S HOPE stance, an architect 

FOR EVERY ONE. 

at least $5,000 a year at his profession, and 
who is not generally known, as why, indeed, 
should he be, as Number blank from Clin¬ 
ton, where he served eight years for forgery. 
Then, there is a mail robber, an awful man, 
who served his time, hung about the rooms 
of the association for five months, got a 
place under the government he had robbed, 
and is now at the head of an important pub¬ 
lic department, which he serves faithfully, 
honestly and capably; indeed, he is a man 
who is not only trusted but respected for his 
intelligence and ingenuity. Then, what do 
you say to a professional pickpocket “the 
slickest fellow in the business; you had to 
give your watch to him, w’hether you wanted 
to or not”—who is a hotel detective earning 
$2 a day, never straggling from the path oi 
rectitude, trusted with everything about the 
place and the terror of thieves. Yet that 
fellow' served no less than eight terms in 
prison for thieving. There’s hope in every¬ 
thing and for everybody. 

In a probation case the association may 
ho called upon to support or refute state¬ 
ments-made by the prisoner who has been 
released under a suspended sentence. It is 
the author of the new state probation law, 
and has done much to perfect its work¬ 
ings. In paroled cases, where the 
prisoner has earned his release from 
confinement by good behavior, it co-operates 
with the prison authorities in secur¬ 
ing work and exercising guardianship. 
Except as it applies in the reformatories. 


on parole must report to the authorized 
agents, and if he fails to appear In person 
the agents seek him. Whenever a letter is 
received from his alleged mother or alleged 
employer saying that he is so busy he has no 
time to call, or is too ill to leave the house, 
the agent smells the falsehood, and makes 
up his mind that the offender is back in 
his old ways or is serving a new sentence 
in jail or the penitentiary. 

Still, the reformatory man has an advan¬ 
tage over the late issue from Sing Sing, who, 
except for his $10 and his unshrinking 
clothes, arrives in town a prey to the first 


else drive them to jump into the nearest 
river, which i3 not Christian and not kind. 
In Switzerland, where they do many things 
better than we do, the man who exposes and 
persecutes another for having been a convict 
breaks a law and may become a convict 
himself, to see how he likes it. I have 
worked in the same shop with ex-convicts 
and have found them to be the equals of their 
mates in intelligence and behavior. Until 
I could be sure that my own record was clear, 
and thereby enjoy a luxury that is denied to 
most of us, I could not feel that aversion that 































PRISONS OF THE NATION AND THEIIl INMATES. 


Is principally affected by those who know 
them least. 

By Its charter the Prison Association of 
New York is permitted to erect and carry 
on a workhouse for released convicts, but it 
lias not deemed it wise to act on this pro¬ 
vision. It would tend to keep rounders 
hanging about the place beseeching charity, 
and make them careless about looking for 
work elsewhere. It would also tend to 
bring them into their own society, which is 
unwise. Women convicts have the care of 
a company of womeu who carry on their work 
as quietly as possible, but in spite of the 
moral superiority of women to men, it 
has been found that they are more weak 
of will and more easily lapse into vice, while \ 
their congregation into shelters and homes ! 
merely transfers them from cells to rooms, | 
and when they are together their influence j 
on. one another, especially that of the older 
an-d more depraved on the younger, is un¬ 
fortunate. According to one magistrate, > 
they lie ninety-nine times as easily as men; ] 
hence it is less easy to arrive at a knowl¬ 
edge of their status and easier to mistrust 
them. 

The man who applies to the association for 
help seldom lies. He knows it to be of lit¬ 
tle use. And he is generally willing to 
be square. He does enough work to pay for 
the tools, or to hold his claim on them, when 
work as a mechanic is provided for him, 
and he is anxious to escape from the world’s 
ken. It is only the professional criminal, 
the man who deliberately chooses theft as 
a means of living, who is arrogant or 
revengeful. One such defiantly said to an 
agent, who, after the custom, visited him in 
prison just before his release, to inquire 
about his family and prospects, “Yes, I can 
get work outside, but I won’t take it. What do 
they give me? A dollar and a half a day. 
I’ll steal first.” That is the kind of fellow 
that a more advanced society may per¬ 
manently seclude from its advantages and 


deliberations, yet when that kind of man is 
a political boss, how tamely we put up with 
him! 

Regarding the mental at- 

FEW SHOW titude of the prisoner, it 

p|-«"rpn»|rqq is surprising that so few' 
Dl I 1 tnlMHOO. Qf them show bitterness. 

Mr. Barrow says: “In Sing Sing forty-eight 
in fifty of the men confess that they are 
justly punished. I find little of a revenge¬ 
ful attitude toward society, and even the 
j judges and prosecuting attorneys are looked 
upon as necessary parts of the legal ma¬ 
chinery, who act without prejudice. Some¬ 
times, however, you will find that some one 
person has aroused a convict’s enmity, and 
there are threats of retaliation; but usually 
it is a witness for the prosecution, or the 
complainant, and not the officers of the law, 
w T ho are held in such dislike.” And when a 
complainant shows uncharity, do you wholly 
blame the convict that he feels a little more 
than sorry and a little mad? Here, for ex¬ 
ample, is a lad of 19, who has been serving 
a half year sentence for appropriating $5 
from his employer. He yielded to a sudden 
temptation and was afterward sorry and 
ashamed. He would have paid the money 
back and possibly will do so yet. But the 
punishment was disproportionate. This was 
a case for the probation officer, not for a 
jury. His six months in the penitentiary 
were months of greater heaviness because 
he never heard in that time from his rela¬ 
tives and supposed that they had refused to 
have anything farther to do with him, 
though it happened merely that they had 
supposed themselves barred from seeing or 
writing to him in prison. In another case 
where a weak brother had been released his 
landlady received him back without a ques¬ 
tion and offered to board him for three 
weeks on credit. 

Friendly visits are made from time to 
time by officers of the association to men 


who have reformed, to befriend and en¬ 
courage them. One day an ex-convict drove 
to the office in his carriage and said that 
the association had helped him. Now he 
wanted to pay out some of the money he had 
honestly earned in befriending some one 
else. 

It is not to the credit of this country that 
so little is done to help the convict who 
wants to lead a better life, and that so much 
is done by men hoggish of their privileges 
to keep him down in the life wherein he 
finds himself. The cowardice of American 
officials in dealing w r ith questions that aie 
likely to bring them in conflict with organ¬ 
ized labor and their indifference to the 
opinions of that far larger class that repre¬ 
sents unorganized labor is a bar to progress 
in prison management. It prevents the 
proper employment and training and teach¬ 
ing of prisoners and disqualifies them for 
useful life after release. There is a little 
broader spirit in Europe, and it has been 
found by Mr. Barrows that where w r ork is 
active for the beterment of discharged con¬ 
victs there are fewer recommitments to 
prison; hence, a lighter burden for the tax¬ 
payer to bear; that where relief associations 
exist there is a beter prison management 
and more active preventive measures; that 
the tendency of an association is to liberal¬ 
ize public sentiment and that of the various 
methods none promises better than the 
Swiss, in which every discharged convict, 
who is not an habitual criminal, may have 
a patron who shall be to him a guardian 
and friend. 

Some day we shall not unlikely seclude or 
exile the incurable offenders—there are not 
many of them—and to the.others we may, 
with a good grace, extend a helping hand, 
realizing that, in spite of their faults, 
which are often exaggerated, they are men 
and brothers. 












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CLINTON L. ROSSITER. 1st Vice Prest. 
DAVID G. LEGGET, 2d Vice Prest. 
FREDERICK T. ALDRIDGE. Secretary. 
WILLARD P. SCliENCK, Asst. Secy. 


TRUSTEES: 


WILLIAM M. INGRAHAM. 
EDWARD D. WHITE. 
EDWARD MERRITT. 
FRANK LYMAN. 

DAVID G. LEGGET. 
SEYMOUR L. HUSTED, JR. 
SETH L. KEENEY. 

FRANK L. BABBOTT. 
THEODORE F. JACKSON. 


JOHN F. HALSTED. 
DAVID H. VALENTINE. 
CLINTON D. BURDICK. 
HORATIO M. ADAMS. 
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CHARLES E. WHEELER, Cashier. 

DIRECTORS: 

Samuel Sloan. Horace C. Du Val. George W. Chauncey. Charles E. Wheeler. 

Edward D. White. David H. Valentine. William Baylis. George W. White. 

Daniel D. Whitney. James Raymond. Daniel W. McWilliams. Jacob T. E. Litchfield. 

Daniel Chauncey. 


Capital, ,$500,000.00, and J^arcjQ $urplu$. 



























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